The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Tabata and Taylor’s relationship constituted a space of political, historical and literary
enquiry and production. Here, they gave each other mutual support in their authorial
endeavours. They also attempted to reach beyond the bounds of this space, to influence
the consciousness of people in political and cultural ways through their analyses of
South African society as expressed in their political, historical and fictional writing. They
also attempted to influence layers of society through Tabata’s public political activism
and interventions in the movement of national liberation. Having had its origins in the
political interventions of the Workers Party, the space of Taylor and Tabata’s
relationship took on a logic of its own once the party had disintegrated. In the 1950s, it
became a space of sustenance to which they were able to retreat in the face of threats
from the apartheid state and from malicious attacks arising out of internal turmoil in the
movement.
Except for occasional lectures on literature to the TLSA and NEF, Taylor was largely
isolated from public political activity in her own name. A few of Tabata’s closest
comrades and protégés, such as Tsotsi, Sihlali and Papert knew that she was important
to the facilitation of Tabata’s political work. A wider layer were aware that Taylor was
the author of The Rôle of the Missionaries, literary works and historical plays, even though
these were published anonymously. Nevertheless, Taylor felt isolated in her relatively
unpublic position. While Tabata was banned in the late 1950s, Taylor took on the task of
being his proxy. This measure was a means of evading security surveillance and also
had the effect of partially reducing her feeling of isolation.
Taylor mediated the relationship that Tabata had with activists in the movement that
was reconstituting itself. She was the recipient of progress reports that were intended for
Tabata on matters ranging from political organising in SOYA and CATA, the unfolding
conflicts at conferences and the progress of Ikhwezi Lomso. 40 Even members of his family
40 Leo Sihlali to Dora Taylor, 4 October 1957, 22 December 1957, 24 August 1958, 28 August 1958; A.K.
Tom to Dora Taylor, 20 January 1958, 4 June 1958, 18 December 1958, n.d. (c.1958); A Carolissen to
Dora Taylor, 23 March 1958; Kini Sihlali to Dora Taylor, 10 April 1958, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
The last letter is significant because the sender, Kini Sihlali was a proxy as well, for her husband Leo,
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