Books of life

Panel answer questions at the Cape Town Book Fair

July 2, 2008 – Whose life story is it anyway? The forces that shape people’s biographies, and the way these stories help us understand our past, were some of the topics discussed when the Nelson Mandela Foundation held a dialogue forum at the recent Cape Town Book Fair.

Facilitated by Professor Njabulo Ndebele, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and celebrated author, the forum was led by a panel comprising Mark Gevisser, Pregs Govender, Mac Maharaj and Makhosazana Xaba.

Their theme was The Role of Biography in Understanding Our Pasts. By “biography” was meant the life story of an individual, whether told by that individual or by another. Speaking of “pasts” in the plural indicated that there can be many narrative versions and interpretations of the past. 

The panellists considered questions such as the following:

• South Africa is experiencing a blossoming of biography – why do you think this is so, and what is its significance?
• Is this blossoming shaped by a privileging of certain voices and certain experiences? More broadly, how does the politics of publishing impact on biography?
• How important is biography to our interrogation of the past? Is it, for instance, as important as academic research?
• The biographer must draw on rigorous research at the same time as heeding the imperative to tell a good story. What are the necessary bounds of imagination? And what are the limits of narrative?
• What forms of biography (eg autobiography, authorised biography, unauthorised biography) are being worked with, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Mac Maharaj

Mac Maharaj, who has been a freedom fighter, political prisoner, activist and ANC government minister, has also been involved in biography since his days on Robben Island. He was the person who transcribed the first draft of what eventually became Long Walk to Freedom – in minuscule “smuggle writing”. He edited the book Reflections from Prison and was also the joint editorial adviser to Mandela – The Authorised Portrait. More recently, he was the subject of and contributor to Padraig O’Malley’s Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa.

Pregs Govender

Pregs Govender was an activist, teacher and trade unionist during the years of apartheid. Elected as an ANC MP in 1994, she initiated South Africa’s gender budgeting and chaired the Parliamentary Committee on Women amongst other things. She resigned as an MP in 2002, and now chairs the Independent Panel of Experts reviewing South Africa’s parliament. She is the author of an autobiographical book, Love and Courage, A Story of Insubordination.

Mark Gevisser

Mark Gevisser is a journalist, Mail & Guardian political profiler, political analyst, and co-editor, with Edwin Cameron, of Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. More recently he has expanded his activities to be a documentary film maker, museum exhibition designer, heritage consultant, TV scriptwriter and author of the acclaimed biography Thabo Mbeki – The Dream Deferred.

Makhosazana Xaba

Makhosazana Xaba is a former exile, nurse, journalist and women’s health activist, as well as a prize-winning writer and poet. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Wits and was a Writing Fellow at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in 2006. She is working on a biography of JDT Jabavu’s grand-daughter, Helen Nontando “Noni” Jabavu, who left South Africa in 1933 as a young teenager and returned home only at the age of 83 in 2002. Xaba is currently Programme Executive: Population Health at The Atlantic Philanthropies, a grant-making foundation.