Dialogue revisits racist past

HIDDEN Histories was the title of the latest edition of The Herald Community Dialogue held at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, where two books were launched on Thursday.

Hosted as a collaboration between The Herald, the university and the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy, the event was used as a platform for the launch of World of Letters: Reading Communities and Cultural Debates in Early Apartheid South Africa, written by Pretoria-based academic Professor Corinne Sandwith, and Richard Rive: A Partial Biography by Professor Shaun Viljoen of the Western Cape.

While Viljoen's work has been available for about a year, this is the first time it is being launched in the Eastern Cape, while Sandwith's work is newly published and has only been available since June.

True to the theme of the event, the two authors presented their books as works which brought little-known aspects of South African history to the fore, and more specifically South African individuals.

Sandwith, an English lecturer and author of a number of published works who holds a BA and a PhD, both from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, described her book as a work which "retrieves an important but largely forgotten history of readers, reading practices and cultural debates in early apartheid South Africa".

She said her research covered the period between the 1930s and 1960s, and that her material was sourced from a collection of oppositional newspapers, literary magazines, debating societies and theatre groups.

In his presentation, Viljoen – who once worked with Richard Rive, the black South African teacher, novelist and writer, political activist and playwright – named the book A Partial Autobiography for a number of reasons, among which were that "no biography is ever complete", and because his book aimed to present viewpoints on the man from a number of different sources and because much of Rive's private life, including his homosexuality, had not yet been brought to the fore.

Viljoen, chair of the English department at Stellenbosch University, said the book had started out as a doctoral thesis at the University of the Witwatersrand, but that he had later turned the work into a book.

Rive died after being stabbed by two young men, one of whom he was having a sexual relationship with and the other who wanted to rob him, was known for his stance against racism. Both books are available at Fogarty's Bookshop at Walmer Park in Port Elizabeth. - Shaun Gillham