The Oral History Collection was created as part of the Achmat Dangor Legacy Project (ADLP). The purpose of the interviews was to gather information about the life and times of Achmat Dangor. Participants, including Achmat’s surviving family members, colleagues and friends, were invited to share their recollections of Achmat. Participants were invited to speak about the different components of Achmat’s life such as his work at the Kagiso Trust, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, UNAIDS, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Ford Foundation as well as his literary work. The interviews were recorded on zoom and verbatim transcripts drafted. The collection forms part of the Achmat Dangor Papers housed at Historical Papers Research Archive at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Interviewee Connection to Achmat

Abbas Dangor: Achmat’s younger brother
Justine Dangor: Achmat’s daughter and first born child
Mohammed Dangor: Achmat’s older brother
Moosa Dangor: Achmat’s younger brother
Zachary Dangor: Achmat’s son and third born child
Zane Dangor: Achmat’s younger brother
Jean de la Harpe: Achmat’s friend, colleague Kagiso Trust and in the United Democratic
Ariel Dorfman: Achmat’s colleague and friend
Audrey Elster: Achmat’s wife and partner of thirty years
Maeline Engelbrecht: Achmat’s PA at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund
Patrick Flusk: Achmat’s friend and colleague in Riverlea community organisations and the United Democratic Front
Verne Harris: Achmat’s colleague from the Nelson Mandela Foundation
Horst Kleinschmidt: Achmat’s colleague from Kagiso Trust
Glenn Moss: Achmat’s colleague at Ravan Press and friend
Peter Piot: Achmat’s colleague from UNAIDS
Mamphela Ramphele: Achmat’s colleague from the Independent Development Trust and the Nelson Mandela Foundation
Gadija Richards: Achmat’s maternal aunt
Muneer Richards: Achmat’s cousin and Gadija’s son
Oliver Schmitz: Achmat’s friend and with whom he co-wrote a film script “Soft Targets”
Buyisile Sishuba: Achmat’s PA at the Nelson Mandela Foundation
Annari van der Merwe: Achmat’s publisher at Kwela Books (Kafka’s Curse and Bitter Fruit)
Ivan Vladislavić: Achmat’s friend and editor of Kafka’s Curse and Bitter Fruit
Darren Walker: Achmat’s colleague at the Ford Foundation
Paul Weinberg: Achmat’s colleague in the United Democratic Front and friend

Achmat’s younger brother Abbas Dangor is a technology management consultant. Abbas was born in Newclare and completed his secondary schooling at Chris J Botha High School in  Bosmont, near Riverlea, in Johannesburg. Abbas left South Africa in 1991 and completed a Master of Data Science at James Cook University in Australia where he continues to live. To learn more about Abbas visit his profile page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbasdangor/details/experience/

There is a sixteen-year age gap between Abbas and Achmat. Abbas’s early memories of Achmat are when Achmat moved back to the family home in the early 1970s. Abbas recalled “Achmat took it upon himself, to sit down with me every night, to teach me consonants and vowels and maths. This was my first year at school, so I clearly, clearly remember that.” Achmat,  according to Abbas, shaped his political, religious and general thinking and Abbas listened carefully when his brother offered him guidance.

Achmat’s daughter Justine Dangor is currently a fundraiser at the University of the Witwatersrand where she has worked for the last twenty years. Justine is the eldest of Achmat’s three children.

Justine’s earliest memory of her father is of him reading to her when they lived in Newclare. She has vivid memories of their home:

“It had a long passage, but it was also a very busy household, because we lived very close to my father’s brothers who were in upper Newclare, very close to his cousins who lived in Bosmont and Newclare and his aunt, who also lived in Newclare, so we were very very close. It was a very busy house … one of the things of being part of the extended Dangor-Chothia family was that, there were always people popping in, be it my father’s brothers who lived in the same area, his cousins, his aunt, there were always people popping in and out.”

Justine maintained that her father “was happiest writing, he was happiest being in his study and writing, you know, he couldn’t wait to come home and sit in his study and write, because that’s who he was, you know. He didn’t become a writer he was born to be a writer.”

Mohammed Dangor is the former advisor to the Minister of International Relations. Prior to that he was the South African Consul General to Saudi Arabia and Ambassador to Syria, Jordan and Libya. He was born and grew up in Newclare Johannesburg and is Achmat’s older brother by eighteen months.

Like Achmat he became involved in the anti-apartheid struggle at a young age. Mohammed explained:

“growing up in our lives, we were impacted by apartheid in very many ways and I think that turned us into what we were. We were impacted by separate schooling, by race classification, by a working-class mother, who was a garment worker.”

Achmat’s younger brother, Moosa Dangor, has been involved in business most of his life occupying various positions as a buyer, manger and salesperson. He was born and grew up in Newclare and completed his schooling at Coronationville High School. There is an eight-year age gap between Moosa and Achmat.

Moosa’s early memories of Achmat are when he, with his family, visited his maternal grandmother in Fordsburg when Achmat was living with her. Achmat took Moosa to the café to buy some sweets and Achmat mentioned he was Moosa ‘s brother. Moosa recalled “that was our first debate I said, ‘But I don’t know you. You don’t live with us’ and he said, ‘No, I am your brother, I promise you.” Moosa’s second memory of Achmat is when Achmat returned to the family home. Moosa explained: “He came to live with us, ostensibly to supplement the family income … he introduced our family to literature basically. When he moved into our house in Newclare, he moved in with a whole collection of books, Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, and Homer.”

Achmat’s youngest child, Zachary Dangor, is a student and recently completed secondary school at Crawford International College, Sandton, Johannesburg. Whilst completing matric he created and produced a podcast about mixed race identity. To learn more about Zachary and his podcast visit: https://www.stuckinthemiddle.online/

Zachary described his father as follows:

“He was extremely intelligent and wise. He was very creative. He loved matching my imagination and he always entertained my imagination. It was like he was a child as well, in terms of imagination and I guess that’s why we ended up writing that little story together (published later in the Sunday Times) … He was selfless in that a lot of the things that he did for me were not really for him. Going to see a football game, celebrating Christmas. He preferred seeing me happy … He was a really good father.”

Achmat’s younger brother Zane Dangor is currently the Director-General of the Department of International Relations and Co-Operation in South Africa. He was previously the Director General for the Department of Social Development and has worked at the United Nations. He was born and grew up in Newclare. completed his secondary schooling at Chris J Botha High School in Bosmont, near Riverlea, in Johannesburg. Zane holds two Master’s Degrees – a Master’s in International Law, and a Master’s in Public and Development Management both from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also widely published in the area of international relations.  To learn more about Zane consult his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zane-dangor-8b211110/?originalSubdomain=za

There is an eighteen-year age gap between Zane and Achmat. Zane’s earliest memories of Achmat are of Achmat teaching him to read. Zane recalled: “Achmat made it his purpose to ensure that before I go to school, I was going to be able to read. There were no day care centres, there were no crèches. You know you had parents who were working. Those who were working, were working long hours and he just felt that getting me into books was one way of keeping me off the streets.” Achmat, according to Zane, shaped his approach to life and was a role model for Zane.

Achmat’s colleague and friend Jean de la Harpe is the Executive Director, Municipal Infrastructure of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).  She was an anti-apartheid activist and worked for the African National Congress (ANC) underground as an uMkhonto we Size (MK) operative and received specialised intelligence training in the German Democratic Republic.  Jean was involved in administrative work for the United Democratic Front (UDF) and as a fundraiser and prepared much of the UDF’s resource material. Jean’s fundraising skills were applied during early campaigns within the ANC. She was a founder member of the South African History Archives which holds some of her papers. To learn more about Jean’s current work visit her LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-de-la-harpe-5b23b65/?originalSubdomain=za

Achmat and Jean met in the late 1980s she reflected: “I can recall Achmat very much from the cultural side of the UDF, but also his developmental work in Kagiso Trust. I think between those two areas, we came to work on various things together.” Over time a special friendship developed “Achmat, Audrey and myself got into a routine of every Christmas / New Year going on holiday together, over a period of more than 20 years. Achmat and Audrey were like family to me.”

Achmat’s friend and colleague Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. He is currently a Walter Hines Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina in the United States. Ariel is the author of numerous works of fiction, plays, operas, musicals, poems, journalism and essays in both Spanish and English. Dorfman’s acclaimed work includes the play and film “Death and the Maiden” and the classic text How to Read Donald Duck. His most recent books besides the novels Darwin’s Ghosts and Cautivos, as well as the children’s story, The Rabbits’ Rebellion, are the poems, Voices from the Other Side of Death, and the novels The Suicide Museum and Allegro. Ariel’s books have been published in over fifty languages and his plays performed in more than a hundred countries. He contributes regularly to major newspapers and magazines around the world.  To learn more about Ariel visit his website: https://www.arieldorfman.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Dorfman

Achmat and Ariel met in 1986 at a Duke University conference “Challenges of Third World Writing”. At this conference Ariel recalls that Achmat said “it is impossible to divorce the political from the social.” Achmat and Ariel “really bonded” at this conference and stayed in touch over the years and developed a close friendship: “he really was exemplary as a person who brought together literature and the commitment to revolution.”

Audrey Elster is the Executive Director of the RAITH Foundation in South Africa, a locally funded foundation committed to supporting the advancement of social justice. Audrey initiated and is the manager of the Achmat Dangor Legacy Project. She is Achmat’s wife and partner of thirty years.

Audrey and Achmat met in Glasgow in 1990. Audrey recalled:

“I’m a literature graduate. I did my MA in Latin-American and French language and literature at Glasgow University and then continued my studies in Mexico at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). In ’89 I came back to Scotland and I got a job with an international development agency and because I was the most junior member of staff, my job was to take [visitors from] Asia, Africa and Latin America to buy warm clothes; they hadn’t anticipated the weather in Scotland! I took Achmat to buy a sweater and then Achmat invited the whole programme team out for dinner. I got there early and Achmat was there and we were talking … I’d never met anyone who was involved in development work and politics, who knew anything about literature and that’s how we met, that’s how we became close.”

Of her husband Audrey said:

“[Achmat had a] very hectic work life, but then he somehow also managed to be engaged in so many other things. That is just how he lived his life … he felt an obligation to be actively involved in South Africa’s developments and democracy-building. I think he felt it a bit of a luxury not to be … he always said that writing was just something he couldn’t not do. He just felt compelled to write and if he wasn’t writing, he felt destabilised almost.”

Maeline Engelbrecht, Achmat’s PA at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, currently runs her own consultancy. She attended Chris J Botha Senior Secondary and was in the same class as Achmat’s younger brother Zane, from standard 6 all the way to matric and also participated in the school boycotts of the 1980s. Maeline joined the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) in 1995 as one of the first five staff members to be employed during Nelson Mandela’s term of office as President. Spanning a period of just under 20 years Maeline went from being the CEO’s PA to Fundraising Manager of the NMCF and Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital until October 2023.  To learn more about Maeline’s work visit her LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maeline-engelbrecht-46370348/?originalSubdomain=za

Maeline met Achmat when he was appointed as CEO of the Children’s Fund:

 “I met him and then of course recognised the surname and asked him and that’s when he jokes and says, yes, (Zane) it’s his baby brother. Achmat was such a gentle soul, you know. He had such a different leadership style from the previous CEO and Achmat came in with this softer approach, this more leadership approach, this more inclusive approach with the staff. It was very welcoming.”

Achmat’s colleague Patrick Flusk is currently the CEO of Solstice Networks. Patrick was born and grew up in Riverlea. Patrick’s activism against apartheid started at a young age when he played a key role in the school boycotts of the 1980s. He joined the Anti-PC (Anti-President’s Council) in 1984 and was elected president of the Riverlea Youth Congress in 1985. Patrick was involved with the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the African National Congress (ANC). To learn more about Patrick visit his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-flusk-74a3a86a/?originalSubdomain=za

Achmat and Patrick met in the 1980s around the time of the school boycotts. Patrick recalled:

“In 1980, was the first time that I met Achmat. There was a group of us and we met at the house of Shirley van Wyk [Chris van Wyk’s mother and later Patrick’s mother-in-law]. As we were talking, I made the point that we must go and be brave and honest to the students and tell them it is about their freedom, it is not just about gutter education. Achmat said to me, ‘Young man, you and I must have a discussion. There are principles, there are strategies and there are tactics and in order to mobilize the maximum number of parents, let us not scare them, because they are still scared of the apartheid government. We will use a tactic and the tactic will be education … to organise and mobilize them.’ After the meeting, I think he thought that I looked shocked and dejected and he came to me and said, ‘Come and visit me and let’s have a cup of tea’ … At one stage, because of the difficulties I grew up in, I then stayed at Jessie Duarte’s house and … on one or two occasions, I went to go stay at Achmat’s house, especially when the police raided Jessie’s house … [we had] a number of these bases, where we could go and hide whilst the police were looking for us.”

Verne Harris worked in various capacities at the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) which he joined in 2004 on a permanent basis. He is an adjunct professor at both the Nelson Mandela University and the University of Cape Town, and has authored and co-authored six books, the most recent one being Ghosts of Archive (2021). To learn more about Verne visit: https://crishet.mandela.ac.za/Staff-Associates/Verne-Harris

Verne and Achmat first met via email when Verne worked at Wits University and Achmat was in New York and trying to get access to his apartheid era security files. Their first face-to-face meeting was when Achmat was appointed as the Chief Executive of the NMF at the beginning of 2007. Reflecting on Achmat as CEO, Verne recalled:

Achmat preferred to be in the background – he worked systematically, he insisted on professional space, not familial space, you know, this notion that we’re all a family and we’ve got each other’s backs, was for Achmat a no, no. We act professionally we conduct ourselves in relation to one another professionally. Achmat loved the thinking work and I’ve come to miss that. Achmat, was extraordinary, you don’t often find this combination of a thinker, a public intellectual who’s also a very good bureaucrat, a very good manager and that combination was fantastic for us, given what we needed in that moment with that period of transition. Achmat knew how to inspire with ideas. He knew how to get the best out of people and how to assemble teams.”

Achmat’s colleague in the 1980s Horst Kleinschmidt  is semi-retired but continues to write on social justice and human rights issues. He has most recently been involved in developing the Christian Institute Olive Grove at Goedgedacht north of Cape Town. Horst was Vice President of the National Union of South African Students in 1970 and his political work denied him a post as teacher. He was assistant to Ds. Beyers Naudé at the Christian Institute. He was detained in 1975 and fled the country in 1976.

In exile, Horst was Director of the London-based International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) that paid for the legal representation for thousands of apartheid opponents standing trial or detained without trial. He was a founding member of the South Africa Namibia Committee (SANAM), an umbrella organisation which brought together secular NGOs, that worked in partnership with the development agency Kagiso Trust (KT) in its implementation of the European Commission’s Special Programme for Victims of Apartheid. On returning from exile, he served as Director of the Kagiso Trust and the Mvula Trust. From 2000 to 2005 Horst was appointed as head of the Fisheries branch of Government. To learn more about Horst visit his website: http://www.horstkleinschmidt.co.za/

Horst and Achmat first met in the early 1970s at a Labour Party meeting in Bosmont and they reconnected in the 1980s when Achmat was the Executive Director of KT. Horst attended many of the meetings between the EU and the KT. He recalled that at these meetings Achmat was a skilled negotiator and “was at ease, confident, he read the politics at the different levels very correctly.”

Glenn Moss studied at the University of Witwatersrand where he was involved in student politics which led to periods of imprisonment, detention and trial during the 1970’s. Later in the 1970’s Glenn moved into publishing and edited Work in Progress for a decade and was a founding editor of the South African Review. In 1988, Glenn headed Ravan Press, a position he occupied for seven years. He left publishing in 1995 and was appointed as an advisor to the Central Statistics Service, a post-apartheid national government department. He remained associated with what became Statistics South Africa for 15 years, helping to build capacity in dissemination and analysis of data and information, data management, inter-governmental relations and strategic communications.  Glenn authored Political Trials: South Africa, 1976-1979 published in 1979, by the Development Studies Group, University of the Witwatersrand, and The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s, published by Jacana Media in 2014. To learn more about Glenn, visit: https://www.thenewradicals.com/the-author.html and https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/glenn-moss

Glenn and Achmat met in the 1970s when Achmat was part of Black Thoughts and a youth leader of the Labour Party, which had incorporated elements of the Black Consciousness Movement. They started engaging more from the mid-1980s and especially when Glenn led Ravan Press and Achmat was an author and trustee of Ravan Press. Over time they became close friends. Glenn explained:

“My predominant relationship with Achmat was political, rather than of a cultural or literary nature … Achmat was remarkable for being nuanced and flexible. He wasn’t a binary person. He didn’t see things as either / or this / that or anything else like that. He saw nuance and he saw complexity and that made him special amongst the political leadership at the time, because much political leadership was exceptionally rigid and Achmat, as I say, was a nuanced person who could take accounted complexity and deal with issues that were challenging in a serious and cerebral way, rather than in an aggressive and politically defensive way. For me that’s the primary characteristic, the primary contribution of Achmat to the political terrain that I recall.”

Achmat’s colleague at UNAIDS Peter Piot is special advisor on Global Health Security to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and a Professor at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was the first Executive Director of UNAIDS (established in 1995) and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He has authored 16 books and more than 500 scientific articles. To learn more about Peter visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Piot and to access some of his writings visit: https://profiles.lshtm.ac.uk/2317-peter-piot/publications

Peter and Achmat met when Achmat and Audrey were living in New York in the 2000s. Peter recalled:

“I met Achmat when he was in New York, working for Synergos, and I had for a long time, friends who were from the Anti-Apartheid Movement and so in New York one said, you need to meet this guy and I ended up in his apartment and [we] talked and talked and I was very impressed by the fact that he was, in Europe you would say a ‘Renaissance Man’, an artist, but also politically very astute.”

Achmat and Peter worked together closely for about five years and remained in touch thereafter.

Achmat’s colleague at the Independent Development Trust (IDT) and the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) Mamphela Ramphele is an activist, medical doctor, academic, businesswoman and global thought leader.  She described herself as a “retiree and activist working to support those who continue the quest for the true transformation of South Africa.” To learn more about Dr Ramphele visit her website: https://www.mamphela-ramphele.com/

Mamphela and Achmat first met in the early 1990s when she sat on the Board of the Independent Development Trust. Mamphela said “Achmat was a gentle giant. He was a slim, trim gentleman, always with a smile and always compassionate, always able to engage and listen very attentively to everybody, however important or however insignificant individuals might look to the outsider.”

Mamphela described Achmat as a “true leader” and recalled “he was younger than me, but we became very close with mutual respect, because we shared a dream of the country that could be built out of the ashes of the Apartheid era, the South Africa that we inherit.”

Gadija Richards (née Chothia)  passed in 2024. She was Achmat’s aunt (his mother’s sister) and ten years older than her nephew Achmat. Achmat lived with her and his grandmother (her mother) in Fordsburg when he was a child through to his teenage years. Gadija also lived with the Dangor family in Newclare when she was a young adult. She worked as a bookkeeper at Cajee’s Jewellers in Roodepoort in the early 1970s. Gadija was politically active and was arrested and detained for 120 days for her association with Ahmed Timol. She later married the Labour Party politician Miley Richards.

Gadija played an important role in Achmat’s early life and encouraged him to read. Achmat was close to Gadija and to her brother “Uncle Abe”. About Achmat she remembered:

“Achmat just didn’t want to be categorized you couldn’t tell him anything. He would say he’s listening, but he wouldn’t say where he comes from, Malay and Indian. He didn’t like to be labelled … Growing up, he spent a lot of time with Majee [Uncle Abe] and Bert. He used to say, he went to … help them there in the flat with dishes and that sort of thing, to get his pocket money.”

Achmat’s cousin Muneer Richards is product manager with MTN and a specialist in telecoms and product development.

To learn more about Muneer visit his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muneer-richards-4332602/?originalSubdomain=za

Muneer is the son of Gadija Richards (née Chothia) and Miley Richards and Achmat’s cousin. Muneer referred to Achmat as his uncle because of the age gap between them. He recalled how proud he felt when he held Achmat’s book Bulldozer (published in 1983) for the first time:

“He was my cousin, but I called him “uncle”. I remember being very small. We went to the house in Riverlea and it was the first time I held that book in my hand and you know, like I was just learning to read and now you’re seeing the name of somebody you know on a book … It was magic and this is your uncle and an actual book! That’s a big deal, I couldn’t read any of the poems, they were meaningless to me at the time, but I remember it being a big deal, when that came out. And then they (the books) sort of came thick and fast.”

Achmat’s colleague and friend Oliver Schmitz is a German/South African director who currently lives in Berlin, Germany and works both in film and television as a director, writer, and producer. His films include Mapantsula (1988 and remastered in 2023); Paris Je T’aime (Place des Fetes); Life Above All (Geliebtes Leben / Le Secret de Chanda), Shepherds and Butchers (2016) amongst others. To learn more about Oliver visit his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliver-schmitz-86922967/?originalSubdomain=de

Oliver and Achmat first met in the early 1990s and worked on film script “Soft Targets” together. Oliver recalled:

“I was working on a project after my first film “Mapantsula”, which was not easy to formulate and to articulate. The project was about Robert McBride and I had gone to death row about thirty five times to visit him and done all this ground work and written a script. It was a very lonely space and I looked for a collaborator on this. I spoke to Achmat and he was intrigued and interested and knew some of the background to this story as well and that’s how we really got to know each other better, to work on this script.”

Overtime they became friends and socialised over dinner and at cultural events. Oliver described Achmat as “an incredibly gentle, respecting and thoughtful human being.”

Achmat’s PA at the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) Buyisile Sishuba started work at the NMF in 2000 as Correspondence Administrator. “It was going to be a short assignment for three months”, Buyisile said “and it was extended to six months to two years and so on” and she remained there for 23 years in total.

Buyisile first met Achmat after Nelson Mandela decided that he would like Achmat to lead the Nelson Mandela Foundation. She explained:

“When the Foundation started, we used to work at Madiba’s old house in Houghton where he stayed after he retired as president. So, when they were looking for an office for him because he was no longer staying at that house, the Foundation then found a home in that old house of his. I remember meeting Achmat when he came to meet with Madiba after Madiba decided he wants to bring him in as the Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation … When Achmat came for the first time, we saw this gentleman, very well mannered, polite, we knew that he was the Chief Executive of the Children’s Fund previously. I was just amazed by how humble he was after I learned about his work and what he was about and his literature. Very, very humble, a very kind man, respectful and considerate.”

Achmat’s publisher at Kwela Books, Dr Annari van der Merwe is a trustee of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation, a former teacher, editor publisher and artist. Of her career she said: “I say this is my third career, because the first one was that a little bit of teaching at the University of the Western Cape and at Rhodes University, that was my first career, my academic career and then it was publishing and now it’s painting.” Annari’s publishing career began as head of the department of children’s and youth literature at Tafelberg Publishers in 1978 and she stepped down as director of Random House South Africa in 2008.

She played a key role in establishing Kwela Books for Naspers and it was at this time that she met Achmat. Annari remembered:

“Achmat came down to the offices and I was quite nervous to meet somebody like Achmat that had a name and you know, he was also a political figure. We just got on. He was such a nice man. He was very polite, gentle, you know, fun, he had a sense of humour, so it was not difficult working with him and also his work, you know, was so good. You didn’t have to find fault or teach or anything like that.”

Achmat’s friend, colleague and editor of Achmat’s books Kafka’s Curse and Bitter Fruit Ivan Vladislavić is a writer and currently Professor in the Creative Writing Department at the University of the Witwatersrand where he has been teaching for almost a decade. His published books include the novels The Restless Supermarket, The Exploded View and Double Negative, nonfiction such as Portrait with Keys and The Near North, and the story collections 101 Detectives and Flashback Hotel.  Ivan worked for many years as a freelance editor, copy-editor and advisory editor. To learn more about Ivan visit his website: https://ivanvladislavic.com/about

Ivan first met Achmat in the early eighties when he worked as an editor for Ravan Press, one of Achmat’s publishers. Achmat used to come to the Ravan offices, which were in a house on O’Reilly Road in Berea, to talk with Chris van Wyk, then editor of Staffrider, and publisher Mike Kirkwood. Ivan elaborated,

“I never spoke to him much in those years, although I knew who he was and we were obviously introduced. He was, as I understood afterwards, keeping a low profile at that point, because he was doing a lot of political work, and had been banned earlier. He was working in the business world, for Revlon, if I remember correctly. He used to come in a business suit, and he looked very ‘businessy’, and he popped in and out … I found him quite mysterious.”

“Achmat and I got to know one another better at the end of 1997,” Ivan recalled “when we were together at a festival in Aix-en-Provence. There were many writers there. Looking over my papers, I see that they included André Brink, Njabulo Ndebele, John Coetzee, Zakes Mda, Antjie Krog, Achmat, Mandla Langa, Gcina Mhlophe and Stephen Gray. Interestingly, there were also publishing people present, including David and Marie Philip of David Philip Publishers and Nicholas Combrinck. It was a wonderful gathering of people and there were very interesting discussions. I remember that Audrey accompanied Achmat to that event. Besides the readings and public events, there was a lot of socialising, and good food and wine obviously, being in the South of France. The organisers showed us around and I remember spending time with Achmat and getting to know him a bit better. I had edited Kafka’s Curse earlier that year and I suppose that also laid the foundation for a more sustained friendship.”

Darren Walker was Achmat’s colleague at the Ford Foundation, an international social justice foundation committed to the idea that all people should live with dignity.  His journey, Darren explained, “has centred on the Ford Foundation unlocking opportunity, advancing justice in the world and that is what led us to our work in Southern Africa and opening an office in Johannesburg at the invitation of the South African Government.” To learn more about Darren Walker visit the Ford Foundation’s website: https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/people/darren-walker/

Darren and Achmat first met when Darren was the then Vice-President, soon to be President of the Ford Foundation. Darren recalled:

“I was in search of a rare person for the Africa Programme, I realised within minutes of meeting Achmat, that I would make it my business to convince him to come to the Ford Foundation and head our office in Johannesburg … It wasn’t easy but he was absolutely persuadable from the very beginning, because he understood the Ford Foundation and its work, its aspirations and its impact … and so he rightly understood, that he would bring tremendous social and political capital to the Ford Foundation, by agreeing to be our director in Southern Africa.”

Achmat’s colleague and friend Paul Weinberg is a photographer, filmmaker, writer, curator and archivist. He described himself as a “story teller that uses the camera mainly, but other media as well.” Paul was a founder member of Afrapix and South, the collective photo agencies that gained local and international recognition for their role in documenting apartheid, and popular resistance to it. From 1990 onwards Paul concentrated on feature rather than news photography. Paul’s images have been widely exhibited and published, both locally and abroad.  Learn more about Paul Weinberg on his website at https://paulweinberg.co.za/

Achmat and Paul met around the time that Paul moved to Johannesburg in the late 1970s. Paul connected with the authors, writers, and other creative people attached to the literary magazine Staffrider. Reflecting on Achmat’s qualities Paul said:

“Achmat had an extraordinary stature on the left and the cultural movement. He was a leader. He had exceptional integrity and he was highly respected. He was very amicable, open and approachable, so he wasn’t aloof and out of bounds. While he also had these very important leadership roles hanging over him, he always had time for you.”