Africa South

This selection of essays comes from Africa South, a remarkable magazine which, for five years in the early days of apartheid, presented a principled but non-partisan opposition to the National Party government’s policies and practices. Africa South was unique in coupling its reportage of South Africa with attention to the rest of Africa at a time when many colonies were attaining independence from colonial rule. The essays speak to contemporary readers interested in issues beyond nationalism, in transnationalism and in globalisation, and to those interested in the historical trade and other networks which crossed both the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, holding Africa at their centre. The strongest common focus in the essays selected here is on people. As individuals and in groups, people’s lives are central to all analyses of political, economic and legal developments. Ronald Segal, the prescient founder-editor of Africa South, attracted as his contributors men and women who could write with clarity and potent, youthful intensity – most of these writers would, later in their careers, become famous in their own right. Some of the contributors in this collection include Basil Davidson, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ruth First, Lionel Forman, Helen Joseph, Nelson Mandela, Z.K. Matthews, Fatima Meer, Phyllis Ntantala, Alan Paton and Walter Sisulu.