Top SA author to deliver lecture

African and Canadian news agencies.

She was a member of the Independent Media Commission for South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. After this she went to Columbia and New York to deepen her skills and received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1996.

Political editor

She worked as the group parliamentary editor for South Africa’s Independent Newspapers since May 1997, coordinating correspondents who provide daily copy for the chain. She was appointed political editor of another Independent newspaper, the Daily News, from 1996 to 1997.

Her work includes For the Freedom of Our Daughters (1997); How the Dutch Dealt with the Traumas of the Second World War: Some Lessons for South Africa (1995); History of the Struggle for a Bill of Rights in South Africa (1993); and The Story of BiBi Dawood (1990). She has won numerous awards in Africa, the United States and Brazil.

Her latest book, Beauty of the Heart, in the words of Professor Jonathan Jansen, former Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State, offers something new and different on what is already known about Charlotte Maxeke.

“It brings fresh data to light on her life and weaves this information into a compelling life story that is neither gushing in its praise nor stingy in its acknowledgement of this remarkable leader. It also publish never-before-seen photographs.

“The book reminds the reader that even in those dark and difficult days of the late 19th and early 20th century, there was the possibility of hope when moral leaders stood up amidst the desperation of the times and laid the foundation which would patiently come many decades later,” Prof Jansen says.

Jaffer will be meeting with staff and academics from SPU this afternoon and will be presenting her lecture, entitled Crisis in Leadership, at 4.30pm tomorrow. Everyone is welcome to attend.