The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

CHAPTER SEVEN
DORA TAYLOR AND THE NARRATION OF I.B. TABATA’S LIFE:
BIOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS AND RECIPROCAL
CONSTRUCTIONS
In order to comprehend the history of I.B. Tabata’s biography more fully, it is necessary to
understand the relations through which it was produced. Indeed, Tabata’s biography was
produced through quite definite biographical relations, which were constituted in the
public sphere as well as in settings that were behind the scenes. One such biographical
relation ‐ perhaps the most significant ‐ was his connection with Dora Taylor, with whom
he had a structured, ongoing relationship in a borderland between the public and the
private domains. This relationship was sustained through different phases from at least
the early 1940s. It was Dora Taylor who was Tabata’s primary biographer, who produced
the biographic narrations that were required as the politics of presidentialism took root in
the 1960s as a decisive mode of political campaigning on the part of the Unity Movement
in exile. This biographic work culminated in the creation of an archival collection, which
was repatriated to South Africa and incorporated into a university archive as a legacy of
resistance history and political leadership.
In the previous chapter, we saw that Dora Taylor’s relationship with I.B. Tabata was that
of the political associate and assistant. From about 1941, her political energies became
almost exclusively directed towards assisting Tabata in his correspondence and in his
political writing. Often, Taylor’s work has been understood as that of the secretary and
amanuensis. However, it is possible to argue that it extended beyond this, with Taylor
being the co‐author of ideas and strategies, as well as a range of written works that were
published under Tabata’s name or pseudonym. In this chapter, we examine the
relationship between Tabata and Taylor more fully, in an attempt to historicise its
development and understand its various dimensions. This is absolutely necessary because
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