Grant Farred's philosophical memoir The Perversity of Gratitude expresses his thankfulness for the high school and university education he received under apartheid. He acknowledges the perversity of this, and equally acknowledges another "perversity": that his freely given thanks are only free in appearance. "Debt…adds complexity to how gratitude is employed in this writing." Farred is most indebted to four teachers who, despite CAD's constraints, and yet because of CAD's constraints, inspired him to think beyond apartheid. Foremost among those inspirations was Richard Rive. Rive hoped that young Farred would be Rive's biographer, but Farred felt inadequate to the task. Yet Farred's text ultimately witnesses a biographical inter-identity of Farred and Rive. In doing so, The Perversity of Gratitude epitomizes perverse predicaments that Farred suggests are the conditions of all liberatory thinking.