Book Launch at WISER, Guy, J, 2013, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal: African Autonomy and Settler Colonialism in the Making of Traditional Authority, UKZN Press

Jeff Guys 01.10.13.MP3

In this sophisticated biography Shaun Viljoen, a former colleague of Rive’s, recreates the composite qualities of a man who was committed to the struggle against racial oppression and to the ideals of non-racialism but was also variously described as irascible, pompous and arrogant, with a ‘cultivated urbanity’. Beneath these public personae lurked Rive’s constant and troubled awareness of his dark skin colour as well as his homosexuality. Viljoen draws his and others’ memories of Rive and examines Rive’s writing in order to bring this complex author to life with sensitivity and empathy. This compelling biography deftly balances the public and the private lives of its subject and invites us to think anew about how we read writers who lived and worked during the years of apartheid.

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