Noni Jabavu: a peripatetic writer ahead of her times

When Noni Jabavu died in June last year, I had just talked about her biography a few days earlier at the Cape Town International Book Fair. I was the only person on that four-person panel whose biography was still ‘work-in-progress’. Her death brought that progress to a pause. It numbed me to inact...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Makhosazana Xaba
Format: Article
Language:Afrikaans
Published: Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Association 2018-01-01
Series:Tydskrif vir Letterkunde
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/tvl/article/view/4300
Description
Summary:When Noni Jabavu died in June last year, I had just talked about her biography a few days earlier at the Cape Town International Book Fair. I was the only person on that four-person panel whose biography was still ‘work-in-progress’. Her death brought that progress to a pause. It numbed me to inaction in ways I had not expected. I realized then that my emotional connection to her was much stronger than I had acknowledged to myself. Although I had spoken to her only once, for no longer than 5 minutes in 2005, I had carried the story of her life with me for much too long. As I continue to unearth and piece it together I grow in my belief that she was a woman who lived way ahead of her times.
ISSN:0041-476X
2309-9070