Jacob Dlamini (author)

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The conundrum is this: What does it mean for a black South African to remember life under apartheid with fondness? What does it mean to say that black life under apartheid was not all doom and gloom and that there was a lot of which black South Africans could be, and indeed were, proud? Only lazy thinkers would take these questions to mean support for apartheid. They do not. Apartheid was without virtue. [22]

Askari (2014)

Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (2014) investigates the life of Glory Sedibe, also known as Comrade September, a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and senior Umkhonto we Sizwe operative who in August 1986 was abducted by an Apartheid death squad, led by Eugene de Kock. Under torture, Sedibe informed on his ANC comrades, becoming an askari or spy, and ultimately an assassin, for the Apartheid state. [13] The book explores the phenomenon of "collaboration" with systems of oppression, tracing its long history in South Africa and elsewhere, and examining the lives and motives of black people who were coerced or otherwise co-opted into complicity in Apartheid systems. In this way it seeks to disturb established historical and political memories of Apartheid, and to complicate the binary that distinguishes between victims and perpetrators.

Dlamini wrote the book as an Open Society Fellow in 2012 to 2013. [9] He was attracted to Sedibe's story because of his own absolutist and even "intolerant" political beliefs as a youth in Apartheid South Africa. Active in the Congress of South African Students – and regarding non-Congress-aligned elements of the anti-Apartheid movement as his primary ideological opponents – he had been unable to imagine what could motivate a defection on Sedibe's scale. [4]

Askari won an Alan Paton Award, a South African Literary Award, and a National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award. [13] [23] [24] The Daily Maverick called it "deeply unsettling reading," and complimented it for "subverting the neat binaries of South African history." [13] In André du Toit's view, the book is not wholly successful as a biography of Sedibe, but its critical analysis is rigorous and effective. [14]

The Terrorist Album (2020)

The Terrorist Album: Apartheid's Insurgents, Collaborators, and the Security Police (2020) centres on a gallery of photographs of political enemies of the Apartheid state, known as the "terrorist album," which was maintained by and distributed among the Apartheid security police from the 1960s until the early 1990s. The book uses the album to investigate the workings of the security police by following the stories behind the album's entries – some of which were used to facilitate surveillance and brutal persecution by the Apartheid state, and some of which were absurdly erroneous. It also looks at the post-Apartheid lives led by the individuals on both sides of those stories.

The book grew out of research Dlamini had done for Askari. Given that former officers spoke of the terrorist album as a critical resource for the security police, Dlamini was surprised when he gained access to one of the few remaining copies of the album and found that much of it was inaccurate. The Terrorist Album suggests that a bumbling inefficiency and blind "racial panic" underlay the ostensible, and much mythologised, omnipotence and omniscience of the Apartheid state. [4] Dlamini has said that this myth is the result of "mistaking the state's brutality for efficiency." [12]

In one review, Alex Lichtenstein was exceedingly positive about Dlamini's oeuvre as a whole, but questioned whether The Terrorist Album "adds much to the portrait of apartheid one finds in Askari, although it does take readers deeper into the twisted minds of the security police." [25]

Safari Nation (2020)

Safari Nation: A Social History of Kruger National Park (2020) discusses black people's tourism and leisure activities in the Kruger National Park, as well as broader African environmental history and the history of African environmental thought and migration. Dlamini intended the book to tell "the 'black history'" of the park, not in order to usurp the "dominant 'white history'" but to illuminate the complexity and significance of the park's history. [6] Like his other books, Safari Nation is concerned with the dangers of "treat[ing] black South Africans as nothing more than victims of history." [6] It is based on Dlamini's doctoral dissertation, [4] which was titled, "Putting the Kruger National Park in its place: a social history of Africans, mobility and conservation in a modernizing South Africa, 1900–2010." [9] Dlamini is also a qualified field guide. [2]

Safari Nation won the University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing in English and the American Historical Association's Martin A. Klein Prize in African History. [26] [27] It was also shortlisted for the Sunday Times CNA Literary Award for Non-fiction. [28] It received favourable reviews. [29] [30]

Bibliography

Books:

Selected articles:

Awards

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Patel, Ushma (16 October 2015). "Board approves 17 appointments to Princeton faculty". Princeton University. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "Jacob S. T. Dlamini". Princeton University. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  3. ↑ Burke, Jason (12 July 2020). "'A hell of a lot of hurt': writers confront South Africa's apartheid past". the Guardian. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Menon, Dilip M. (4 August 2021). "Jacob Dlamini, 'relentless detective' of the academy". New Frame. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  5. ↑ "2021 - Alumni in the spotlight in October 2021". Wits University. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 Platt, Jennifer (18 July 2021). "The 'black history' of Kruger Park". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  7. ↑ Dlamini, Jacob (2012). "Putting the Kruger National Park in its place: a social history of Africans, mobility and conservation in a modernizing South Africa, 1900-2010". Yale University. hdl:10079/bibid/11184054 . Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  8. ↑ Moosa, Fatima (16 July 2020). "The Terrorist Album Marked People For Death". The Daily Vox. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 "Jacob Dlamini". Open Society Foundations. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  10. ↑ "Jacob Dlamini". Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  11. ↑ "Jacob S. T. Dlamini - Scholars". Institute for Advanced Study. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Garb, Tamar (27 August 2020). "Transcript: In conversation with Jacob Dlamini". UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Davis, Rebecca (5 December 2014). "Betrayal chronicles: The agonising case of Apartheid's black collaborators |". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  14. 1 2 3 Du Toit, André (2016). "Askari: a story of collaboration and betrayal in the anti-apartheid struggle by Jacob Dlamini (review)". Transformation. 90: 133–142. doi:10.1353/trn.2016.0008. S2CID   157020274.
  15. 1 2 3 Medalie, David (2016). "Remembering Life under Apartheid with Fondness:The Memoirs of Jacob Dlamini and Chris van Wyk". English in Africa. 43 (3): 43–60. doi:10.4314/eia.v43i3.3. hdl: 2263/60750 . ISSN   0376-8902. JSTOR   26359337.
  16. 1 2 "Imraan Coovadia and Jacob Dlamini Win the 2010 University of Johannesburg Prizes". Sunday Times Books. 4 June 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  17. ↑ Eusebius, McKaiser (9 November 2009). "Remembering apartheid with fondness". Politicsweb. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  18. ↑ Giliomee, Hermann (7 April 2010). "A book that changes the way we think". Politicsweb. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  19. ↑ Truscott, Ross (January 2010). "Confronting found memories of apartheid". Psychology in Society (40): 100–102. ISSN   1015-6046.
  20. ↑ Memela, Sandile (30 November 2009). "The new black celebrity authors". Artslink. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  21. ↑ Miyeni, Eric (27 June 2011). "Defining blacks by past misery is unfair". The Sowetan .
  22. ↑ Dlamini, Jacob (2009). Native Nostalgia. pp. 13–14.
  23. 1 2 "2016 Recipients". South African Literary Awards. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  24. 1 2 "Humanities institute hosts successful inaugural awards". National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  25. ↑ Lichtenstein, Alex (22 April 2021). "Apartheid's Paper Trail". Public Books. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  26. 1 2 "The 2021 University of Johannesburg Prize in English Winners". Brittle Paper. 4 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  27. 1 2 "Martin A. Klein Prize Recipients". American Historical Association. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  28. ↑ Malec, Jennifer (7 June 2021). "2021 Sunday Times/CNA Literary Awards shortlists announced". The Johannesburg Review of Books . Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  29. ↑ Maddox, Gregory H. (November 2020). "Review of Dlamini, Jacob S. T., Safari Nation: A Social History of the Kruger National Park". H-Africa, H-Net Reviews.
  30. ↑ Glenn, Ian (4 March 2021). "The Kruger Park and Jacob Dlamini's Safari Nation: A Social History of the Kruger National Park". Critical Arts. 35 (2): 121–126. doi:10.1080/02560046.2021.1944241. ISSN   0256-0046. S2CID   237772208.
  31. ↑ "Damon Galgut and Jacob Dlamini Win the 2015 Sunday Times Literary Awards". Books Live. 27 June 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
Jacob Dlamini
JacobDlamini2023.jpg
NationalitySouth African
Occupation(s)Journalist, historian, author
Academic background
Alma mater
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