Book fair brings together literary talent

IN SHOWCASING Lenasia’s 70-year history, Lenz70 this month hosted a local Writers’ Book Fair at the Trade Route Mall.

- DR ISMAIL VADI

A call was made for authors and academics from the community, who have had their literary work published, to discuss their books and to promote their craft.

The event was coupled with the launch of a photographic exhibition of veteran Lenasia photographers, namely, the late Gopal Naransamy and Fakir Hassen, and the talented Paul Weinberg, who in the early 1980s visited the area and took some amazing black and white photographs of its people and places.

The award-winning South African journalist and author, Niren Tolsi, used the occasion to launch his latest book titled, Writing Around the Wicket: Race, Class and History in South African Cricket.

This book delves into the socio-politics of sport in our country with features on Temba Bavuma and Hashim Amla.

Lenasia has in its publicly-recorded history the name of the celebrated short story writer and novelist, Ahmed Essop.

Essop was a former educationist, who had an acrimonious relationship with apartheid education authorities.

In 1963, after teaching for a while at the Central Indian High School in Fordsburg, he and his family settled in Lenasia. He taught at Nirvana High School, during which time he was elected secretary of the local branch of the South African Indian Teachers’ Association (Saita).

Between 1973 and 1974, due to his troubled relationship with education authorities, he was transferred to various schools as a punitive measure. In frustration, he resigned in 1975.

Essop, by then, had instituted legal action against the Department of Indian Affairs.

In 1977, his case against the department was thrown out of court. He was told that the director of Indian Education was empowered in terms of the Indian Education Act to transfer and dismiss teachers without having to give reasons for such action.

Essop’s novel, The Emperor, is a satire on the educational system and the role of bureaucrats who supported it.