“It´s time to start thinking in a different way about what we can do. Africa can do it, and the change will come from younger people who are open to new ideas and do not operate in terms of race or nationality, who see the humanity in others. In this sense, literature is powerful.”
Achmat Dangor, “My Hope for Africa”, Casa África´s Letras Africanas (African Letters) programme, 2010
Achmat as CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation at a FIFA Media Briefing, Soccer City, Johannesburg, 1 July 2010. Paul Gilham, FIFA / Getty Images via Gallo
THE ACHMAT DANGOR LEGACY PROJECT
Launched in October 2022 and inspired by Achmat’s extraordinary life as a writer and human rights activist, the Achmat Dangor Legacy Project (ADLP) is an initiative of Audrey Elster, his partner of 30 years. It is built around four pillars: this website; the archive; oral history interviews; and the Achmat Dangor Literary Prize. The Nelson Mandela Foundation (where Achmat was the CEO for 7 years) digitised the Achmat Dangor Papers of which the University of the Witwatersrand’s Historical Papers Research Archives (HPRA) is the custodian. The ADLP extends its gratitude to the generous support offered by these partners and the Ford Foundation who provided the initial funding to set it up.
“Achmat was an extraordinary person and lived an extraordinary life. However, he was a quiet and unassuming person, complex, with an astute political understanding and a great sense of humour. I thought it was important to document his life and times so that others may come to know him better, to appreciate his wonderful writing and what he achieved, often under very difficult circumstances. I hope this project inspires others to live life, like he did, to the fullest in the interests of justice, equity and the fulfilment of at least some of the potential that we all have and that he believed so dearly in.”
Audrey Elster, Achmat’s wife and partner of thirty years
“Achmat was a true renaissance man. He was most definitely a warrior for justice, but he was also a poet. He was, as I say, he had this boundless intellectual capacity across disciplines, to connect. He was truly a synthetic thinker, but his writings were so powerful and so profound and provocative. His lived experience, he brought it all to his writing and his love for his country, which also came through in his rage as well, at some of the injustice that he saw during his lifetime.”
Darren Walker, Achmat’s colleague at the Ford Foundation
“I think for Achmat it [his legacy] would be about the work. It would be not about ‘The amazing job I did as head of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund’. It wouldn’t be about, ‘Ah, that fantastic job I did, taking the NMF through transition or that period at the Ford Foundation’… I think it would be the ‘The work that I enabled to happen’ and also for his own writing, it would be more about that body of work, which is still valuable to people, that still inspires people, that still provides insight.”
Verne Harris, Achmat’s colleague at the Nelson Mandela Foundation
ADLP Partner Buildings
