Noni Jabavu

Noni Jabavu
Born
Helen Nontando Jabavu

(1919-08-20)20 August 1919
Middledrift, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Died19 June 2008(2008-06-19) (aged 88)
Lynette Elliott Frail Care Home[1] in Selborne, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa
NationalitySouth African
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist and editor
Notable workDrawn in Colour (1960); The Ochre People (1963)
Spouse(s)Michael Cadbury Crosfield, m. 1951
Parent(s)Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu and Thandiswa Florence Makiwane
RelativesJohn Tengo Jabavu (grandfather); Cecilia Makiwane (maternal aunt)

Helen Nontando (Noni) Jabavu (20 August 1919[2] – 19 June 2008) was a South African writer and journalist, one of the first African women to pursue a successful literary career and the first black South African woman to publish books of autobiography.[3][4] Educated in Britain from the age of 13, she became the first African woman to be the editor of a British literary magazine when in 1961 she took on the editorship of The New Strand, a revived version of The Strand Magazine, which had closed in 1950.[5][6]

In the words of poet Makhosazana Xaba:[7] "One only has to read her two books (Drawn in Colour and The Ochre People) to realize just how skilled she was as a memoirist. Her journalistic column editorials demonstrate a reflective style that must have been unusual for her times. While interviewing Wally Serote who was living in Botswana during the same time as Noni, I learned something that confirmed my initial thoughts on her. 'We men, she said, did not know how to relate to her (Noni). She was a woman living far ahead of our times.' This speaks volumes considering Serote himself is a world-wise literary and cultural giant."[8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Xaba JRB was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ According to one obituary, "Most of the biographical sketches of Jabavu list her year of birth as 1919, but one book, Women Writing Africa: the Southern Region, gives it as 1920." Ben, "Noni Jabavu, Author of Drawn in Colour, Dies at 88", Books, Times Live, 19 June 2008.
  3. ^ Victoria Boynton and Jo Malin (eds), Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography. 2. K – Z, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005, p. 20.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference SAHistory was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Sarah Mir (16 March 2020). "People of The Strand: Helen Noni Jabavu (1919–2008)". Strandlines. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  6. ^ Gcina Ntsaluba, "Call to restore Noni Jabavu legacy", Daily Dispatch, 31 January 2013; via PressReader.
  7. ^ "Makhosazana Xaba". Poetry Archive. Retrieved 17 July 2024.
  8. ^ Makhosazana Xaba (4 July 2008). "A Paragraph on Noni Jabavu". BooksLive. Retrieved 1 November 2022.