Arthur Maimane
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John Arthur Mogale Maimane (b. 1932 d. 2005) better known as Arthur Maimane was a South African journalist.
He was born in Pretoria and had originally intended to study medicine. However, a young priest Trevor Huddleston (who was involved in the Sophiatown forced removals) persuaded him to take a vacation job at Drum magazine. As a result, journalism became his life.
He was a versatile journalist for Drum, covering a wide spectrum of subjects such as sports reports, thrillers or interviews with beauty queens and other celebrities.
The photograph of Maimane in Anthony Sampson's book Drum: a venture into the new Africa (1956) "trilby on back of head, cigarette dangling " is an amusing take-off of the Hollywood 'newshound' image, but conceals his innate seriousness as a reporter and analyst of the world around him.[1]
Under the pseudonym Arthur Mogale, he wrote a regular series for Drum entitled The Chief where he described gangster incidents he had heard about in the shebeens. Don Mattera, a leading Sophiatown gangster took exception to this. The gangsters were pissed off with him and there was a word out that we should wipe this guy off. [2]
He moved to Golden City Post as the news editor until 1958. Maimane then moved to Ghana to work on the West African edition of Drum. In 1961, he moved to London.
His marriage over, he accepted a position at Reuters and was posted to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania as its East African correspondent. Here he met his second wife and they both returned to London when he was deported from Tanzania after refusing the founding editorship of Tanu's new daily and for reporting political events critically.
He worked for BBC's Africa Service at Bush House for a while and then moved to ITN.
After the elections in South Africa, he returned and was appointed Features editor of the liberal Weekly Mail. After a brief return to England he was appointed editor of the Star, South Africa’s biggest daily.
They returned to London in 2001.
His novel Victims had been banned in South Africa but was republished in 2000 as Hate No More. His post-apartheid play, Hang On In There, Nelson, was performed at the Windybrow Theatre in Johannesburg and at the State Theatre in Pretoria, in 1996.
He died in 2005 in London.
[edit] Books
- Hate no more, Kwela Books, 2000, ISBN 0-79-570102-0
(Original version: Allison and Busby, 1976, under the title Victims).
- Victims, Allison & Busby, 1976, ISBN 0-85-031162-4 (Winner of the English Academy of South Africa’s Pringle Award for Creative Writing in 1978).
[edit] See also
- Good-looking Corpse: World of Drum - Jazz and Gangsters, Hope and Defiance in the Townships of South Africa, Mike Nicol, Secker & Warburg, 1991, ISBN 0-43-630986-6
- Drum, Anthony Sampson, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983, ISBN 0-34-033383-9
[edit] References
- ^ Vigne, Randolph. "Arthur Maimane", Independent, 2005-07-06. Retrieved on 2007-02-20.
- ^ Mike Nicol (1991). A good-looking corpse. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-43-630986-6.
