originally from kakamas, boesak became active in the separate coloured branch of the nederduitse gereformeerde kerk and began to work as a pastor in paarl. he became known then as a liberation theologian, starting with the publication of his doctoral work ("farewell to innocence", 1976). for the next decade or so, he continued to write well-received books and collections of essays, sermons, and so on. one of boesak's anti-apartheid speeches was sampled by british electronica group the shamen on their album "en tact".