In Memoriam – Hugh Lewin

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Hugh Lewin, the much-loved author, journalist and anti-apartheid activist. 

We at Jacana treasured the opportunity to work with Hugh on his Jafta children’s book series which was first published to worldwide acclaim in 1981 and then again by us in 2015 as well as by publishing houses in India and China. These children’s books meant an enormous amount to Hugh. His main character, Jafta, was born when Hugh was released from prison after a seven-year sentence for his opposition to apartheid.

With exquisite poignancy, Hugh described the life of separation Jafta experienced growing up without a father and shared the universal joys and sorrows of childhood. We send our deepest condolences to Fiona and Hugh’s family.

The Man Who Killed Apartheid

Dr Hendrik Verwoerd was murdered by Dimitri Tsafendas on 6 September 1966. In the Cape Supreme Court Tsafendas was found unfit to stand trial on the grounds that he suffered from schizophrenia. The Court found that Tsafendas had no political motive for killing Verwoerd. Tsafendas was declared a State-President’s Patient and was detained, first in prison, then in a mental institution until his death in 1999. For most of his incarceration he was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment by the prison authorities.

Harris Dousemetzis’s groundbreaking story shows in vivid detail that Dimitri Tsafendas was a deeply political person, a communist and the son of an anarchist. He was committed to an independent Mozambique, the country of his birth, and once even travelled throughout the country operating a communist library. He despised Verwoerd for his apartheid policy and the misery inflicted by those who enforced the apartheid laws. He wanted to end the madness of apartheid, so he murdered its creator. October 2018

This Mournable Body

Dangarembga, a filmmaker, playwright and novelist, is the author of Nervous Conditions, which is on the BBC’s list of “The 100 stories that shaped the world”, and a winner of The Commonwealth Writers Award. 

“You spend the morning writing a letter to your cousin Nyasha, who has become a filmmaker in Germany, in which you ask for advice concerning leaving Zimbabwe. You want nothing more than to break away from the implacable terror of every day you spend in your country − where you can no longer afford the odd dab of peanut butter to liven up the vegetables from Mai Manyanga’s garden or the petty comfort of perfumed soap − by going away and becoming a European.”

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow’s boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.

“Graywolf Press is honoured to be the US publisher of Tsitsi Dangaremba’s latest novel, This Mournable Body,” said Katie Dublinski, Associate Publisher. “We’re thrilled to be sharing this profound and indelible novel with Jacana, which we know will make a good home for the book in southern Africa.” 

In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival.

Read more: This Mournable Body

The First Safari: Searching for François Levaillant

François Levaillant was the first and greatest South African birder, the first major figure of modern ornithology, the creator of the first safari, the first anthropologist of the Cape and our first investigative reporter criticising colonial brutality. He predicted the rebellion of the frontier Boers and was the first to portray the dilemmas of coloured identity. His work in creating beautifully illustrated bird books of his time inspired a map for King Louis XVI that has become the most valuable African map ever produced. His Travels into the Interior of Africa was a best seller across Europe and the most widely translated text on South Africa until Nelson Mandela’s autobiography two centuries later.This book tells how, for a quarter of a century, a South African researcher searched for Levaillant’s travel notebooks and the fate of his collection and tried to solve the puzzles and mysteries of Levaillant’s life and times. Glen’s search took him from the banks of the Orange River to the vaults of the Paris Museum where no Dan Brown hero ever went, facing 30 000 dead birds alone in search of Levaillant’s legacy; from tracing Levaillant’s travels to Theefontein and Pampoenkraal and Kokskraal to the Bloubok exhibit in the hall of extinct animals in Paris’s Natural History Museum; from encounters with billionaires to interactions with French archivists. Glenn’s experiences show that research means searching.

Read more: The First Safari: Searching for François Levaillant