The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

much of his speaking tour of the United States under the auspices of the Alexander
Defense Committee. 110
In spite of the movement’s formal recognition of Dora Taylor, the nature of her and
Tabata’s relationship changed substantially and became more one‐sided. Mutuality gave
way to presidentialism and culture and literature gave way to political struggle. Taylor’s
intellectual life became increasingly devoted to promoting Tabata and his writings.
Tabata’s rise to the position of liberation movement president with a biography in the
1960s coincided ironically with publishers rejecting Dora Taylor’s literary works.
Between February 1962 and June 1965, Taylor submitted her manuscript of a novel, Rage
of Life, to publishers including Heinemann, Collins, Hodder and Stoughton, and Little
Brown. However, it was rejected and returned by all of them. 111 This was most likely
Taylor’s novel that had drawn upon her own experience of childhood abandonment.
Saddened by the manuscript’s rejection, Taylor found solace in her political work.
However, in spite of her being formally accepted into the movement, there was still “no
place” for Taylor in Lusaka with the external leadership, “because of strains”. 112 Taylor’s
110 During the tour, Taylor chose to stay in Chicago, while Tabata went on to Milwaukee, Madison,
Minneapolis, Denver and San Francisco. In Chicago, she felt she would be “of far greater assistance”
close to Gwendolen Carter (who had moved to Northwestern University), whom she described as
having “by far the best files on South African ‘movements’” in the U.S. Taylor sat for an interview at
Northwestern University about the AAC and NEUM, which devoted substantial biographic attention
to Tabata. See ‘Transcript of a conversation with Dora Taylor at Northwestern University on Nov. 20,
1965, regarding the role of the All African Convention and the Non‐European Unity Movement in the
South African nationalist movement’, Karis‐Carter Microfilm Collection, 2:XT1:92/2; see also Dora
Taylor’s Diary of Tabata and her U.S. Tour, 1965, 6 th Installment, Unity Movement of South Africa
Papers (courtesy, Jane Gool, Harare 1991). In 1970, the Committee for a Free South Africa invited
Tabata to undertake another speaking tour of the United States. See Dora Taylor, ‘I.B. Tabata,
President Unity Movement of South Africa: A Biographical Note’, March 1971, author’s possession.
This biographic text was also found and passed on to me by André Marais. It no doubt represented
one of the last biographic tracts of Tabata that Taylor produced.
111 Movement publisher, Prometheus, had been the publisher of Taylor’s last literary publication in
February 1962 before she left South Africa. This was a play, Bitter Waters, based on the novel
Fontamara, and Tabata had facilitated its publication. See Dora Taylor, Pocket Diary, entries for 14 & 27
February 1962, 6 & 26 April 1962, 15 May 1962, 30 June 1962, 11 September 1962 and 22 June 1965;
Ilizwi leSizwe, Vol 1, No 4, February 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
112 Dora Taylor, Pocket Diary, entry for 4 July 1965, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925. Serious internal
political tensions only really erupted in 1966. In early 1965, there had been minor strains, especially in
relation to Livingstone Mqotsi, who had given Tabata “cause to worry”. But these were temporarily
resolved. By July 1965, I think the ‘strains’ that kept Taylor from joining the leadership in Lusaka as
she had wished, most likely related to the anxieties experienced by Jane Gool about the special
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