Ansuyah Ratipul Singh

Ansuyah Ratipul Singh (12 June 1917 – 27 November 1978) was a South African medical doctor and writer.

Early life and education

Ansuyah Ratipul Singh was born in Durban, the daughter of Chatrapul Ratipul Singh, an accountant, and Latchmee Singh. She attended the Durban Indian Girls' School. For medical school she went to the University of Edinburgh in 1936. She finished her degree in 1944, and returned to South Africa two years later.[1] Later, in 1962, she also earned a diploma in Public Health from the University of Natal.[2]

Career

Singh opened a private practice in Durban. In time she worked at the University of Natal Medical School, specializing in family medicine, obstetrics, and gynaecology. She was also on staff at the Clairwood Hospital. She took charge of the obstetric clinic at King Edward Hospital in 1959. She founded a series of clinics to serve poor patients.[1]

In 1956, she became the first Indian woman to be appointed to the Natal Provincial Administration. Her 1960 historical novel Behold the Earth Mourns is considered the first published novel by an Indian South African writer,[3] and described by scholar Antoinette Burton as "a critical history of anti-apartheid struggle."[4] She also wrote several plays (including Cobwebs in the Garden and A Tomb for thy Kingdom), published a collection of her poems and essays,[5] acted in dramatic productions, and played piano.[2]

Personal life and legacy

Singh married twice. She was briefly married in Great Britain, to Bronislav Sedzimer, during her medical school years. They had one daughter, Urvashi. She married again, to lawyer Ashwin Choudree, in 1948.[2] Choudree was in leadership in the Natal Indian Congress and the South African Indian Council. Singh was widowed when Choudree died in 1969.[6]

Singh died in 1978, aged 61 years. There is a bronze statue of Singh dancing, near the town hall in Tongaat.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Ansuyah Ratipul Singh" in South African History Online (2011).
  2. 1 2 3 "Ansuyah Ratipul Singh" in E. J. Verwey, ed., New Dictionary of South African Biography (HSRC Press 1995): 225-227. ISBN 9781868281343
  3. ↑ Bernth Lindfors, African Textualities: Texts, Pretexts, and Contexts of African Literature (Africa World Press 1997): 29-31. ISBN 9780865436169
  4. ↑ Antoinette Burton, "'Every Secret Thing'? Racial Politics in Ansuyah R. Singh's Behold the Earth Mourns" in Africa in the Indian Imagination: Race and the Politics of Post-Colonial Citation (Duke University Press 2016). ISBN 9780822374138
  5. ↑ Ansuyah Ratipul Singh, Summer Moonbeams on the Lake (1970).
  6. ↑ M. E. Manjoo, ed., The Southern Africa Indian Who's Who (1972): 332.
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