Biography Essay

Between 1956 and 1985 Alex La Guma published more than a dozen short stories, five novels, and a travel book on the Soviet Union (1978). In addition he wrote many essays on the political struggles in South Africa and edited a collection of writings on apartheid (1971). His work has been translated into twenty languages. As a creative writer and political activist he was honored by several national governments, and as a writer who addressed the central questions of life in South Africa, he established himself as an important literary figure both in Africa and in the rest of the world.

Alex La Guma was born on 20 February 1925 in Cape Town. He was the son of Jimmy La Guma, president of the South African Coloured People's Congress and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and Wilhelmina Alexander La Guma, who worked in a cigarette factory. In a...