The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

emotional and sexual desires as the tasks of rebuilding a political movement took
precedence.
From around 1962, after Taylor had left South Africa permanently, the narration,
reproduction and dissemination of I.B. Tabata’s biography as part of the Unity
Movement’s political agitation in Africa, Europe and North America became one of her
chief areas of work. This work built upon a significant mutual biographic element that
had been a feature of their many‐sided relationship in South Africa. As Tabata’s primary
biographer, Taylor conducted her biographic work as part of her political commitment.
Tabata’s biography was also a labour of love. Dora Taylor poured her energies into
telling the story of Tabata’s political life as an expression of her personal commitment to
supporting his political efforts. In the process, their relationship of mutuality and
exchange became increasingly one‐sided, geared towards promoting the political
movement and its president, I.B. Tabata. In the process, Taylor paid the price of
sacrificing her literary work as the urgency of political agitation gradually gave way to
the politics of presidentialism. And in return, as a means of settling his enormous debt of
gratitude, Tabata ensured that Taylor overcame her political isolation by being invited to
join the Executive Committee of the Unity Movement in exile.
In April 1962, Dora Taylor arrived in Britain from Northern Rhodesia, after having left
Cape Town in the previous month. Five weeks later, after having secretly left South
Africa, I.B. Tabata embarked on an ‘epic’ journey and joined her in Hemel Hempstead in
a personal and political reunion that she called a “miracle”. 66 Amid visits to museums
and galleries in London, to King’s College Chapel in Cambridge and to Karl Marx’s
grave, Tabata and Taylor resumed their political work. While Taylor typed fresh copies
of Tabata’s addresses to SOYA and APDUSA, Tabata set about meeting and attempting
to lobby Tanganyikan, Ghanaian, Chinese, Polish, Soviet and Czech officials in London.
Tabata and Taylor also circulated Tabata’s publications and addresses to potential
supporters or influential publicists in Britain, such as Colin Legum and Basil Davidson,
66 Dora Taylor, Pocket Diary, entry for 25 May 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
419