Jaffer hopes to inspire through new publishing house

PRETORIA - Activist, journalist and author Zubeida Jaffer and her daughter Rushka have launched their own publishing house.

Named Number10Publishers after the family home in Wynberg, Cape Town, it is a private company that takes ownership of Jaffer’s 40 years of journalism and published works, and will look broadly to support a new national narrative and build confidence among the previously oppressed to share their stories.

During the online launch Rushka said they had developed a business model with the writer at its centre and hoped to inspire others to do the same. Number10 would work to make Jaffer’s legacy available to benefit journalism and encourage South Africans to know the whole story of the country’s brutal past.

Jaffer, who has a master’s degree from Colombia University, started her journalism career when she walked into the Cape Argus looking for a holiday job. She curates her own news portal and has been honoured with both the Percy Qoboza and Alan Kirkland Soga awards for her contribution to journalism.

Number10 will relaunch three books by Jaffer: Beauty of the Heart, the Life and Times of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke; Love in the Time of Treason, the Life Story of Ayesha Dawood, and Our Generation, Jaffer’s own memoir.

The timing of the launch is appropriate as 2021 is the national year of Charlotte Maxeke and April 7 marks the 150th anniversary of her birth. Jaffer chronicles the extraordinary achievements of Maxeke, the first black South African woman to graduate with a BSc and the only woman present when the SA Native National Congress (now the ANC) was formed in 1912.

Jaffer reflected on some timeless wisdom she gleaned from her study of Maxeke, who championed the potential of African people, especially women, to stand up and take control of their own affairs.

The book takes its title from a Maxeke quote that it is the beauty of our hearts that matter, and Jaffer referred to another quote which is reflective of her own life: “This work is not for yourselves. Kill that spirit of self and do not live above your people but live with them, and if you can rise, bring someone with you”.

What ties the three books together, she said, was that there were always people who in the darkest of times did what they had to do to bring light.

PRETORIA NEWS