Lindiwe Hani to launch moving memoir
A FUZZY photograph of Lindiwe Hani as a toddler with her famous politician father‚ Chris Hani‚ has been chosen as the book cover of her memoir‚ which goes on sale at the end of next month.
In the book‚ she explains to what extent the assassination of her struggle icon father sent her on a downward spiral into cocaine and alcohol addiction. Being Chris Hani’s Daughter‚ co-written with journalist Melinda Ferguson‚ promises to lay bare some of the skeletons in the Hani family.
Ferguson shared details of the book’s cover on Facebook‚ commenting: “I am simply over the moon to present our revised cover for Being Chris Hani’s Daughter @mfbooksjoburg that’s about to go to print.
“The 260-page book will be in store in the last week of next month. This was a passion project of note.”
The late leader of the South African Communist Party Chris Hani was shot dead in his driveway in Dawn Park‚ Boksburg‚ in April 1993.
His murder pushed the country to the precipice of civil war‚ prompting former president Nelson Mandela to make an urgent nationwide appeal for calm.
Lindiwe was 12 years old at the time.
The burden of being his daughter later proved too difficult to bear. “For as long as I can remember‚ I’d grown up feeling that I was the daughter of Chris Hani and that I was useless‚” she says in the book. “My father was such a huge figure‚ such an icon to so many people‚ it felt like I could never be anything close to what he achieved – so why even try?
“Of course, my addiction to booze and cocaine just made me feel my worthlessness even more.”
The 35-year-old Lindiwe remembers the years with her father and the toll his death took on the family.
Hani’s family previously refused to meet his killer‚ Janusz Walus‚ in prison. But the Sunday Times reported last year that Lindiwe had requested to meet him as part of a “victim-offender dialogue”.
Lindiwe turned her life around to face her demons‚ “not just those that haunted her through her addiction but‚ with the courage that comes with sobriety‚ she comes face to face with her father’s two killers”‚ said MF Books in a statement late last year.
“The book reveals the exclusive meetings she had with both Clive DerbyLewis before he succumbed to cancer in November last year and her father’s killer, Janusz Walus‚ still serving a life sentence for her father’s assassination on April 10 1993,” it added.
Lindiwe is a marketing and communications expert. — TMG