Christine Qunta

Christine Douts Qunta (born 1952) is a South African writer, lawyer and entrepreneur. She has served on several public and private boards, and her work in various fields has been described as being "held together by the quest for a more just and free society." She was an activist in the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) during the 1970s and spent 17 years in exile, studying and practising law in Australia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, before returning to South Africa in 1993.

Biography Early years and activism Christine Qunta was born in Kimberley, South Africa, in 1952. After ending her formal education in the 1970s, she devoted herself to anti-apartheid political activism. which "mobilised communities to such an extent that the apartheid regime was forced to employ the first black vice-chancellor, Richard van der Ross." After being detained by the government for her activism, she fled the country and was granted asylum in Botswana, subsequently practising law in Australia, Botswana and Zimbabwe,

In 1995, she started her own law firm specialising in corporate law, Qunta Incorporated, in the CBD of Cape Town which was the first black firm to do so. She was also the senior partner in the firm until 2008, when she left the firm to focus on other business ventures.

Literary work Qunta began publishing her writing while in exile, including the poetry collections Hoyi Na! Azania: Poems of an African Struggle (1979) and Heroes & other Treasures (1990), as well as editing the non-fiction anthology Women in Southern Africa (1987). She is also the author of Who's Afraid of Affirmative Action: A Survival Guide for Black Professionals (1995) and her most recent book is Why We Are Not a Nation: Essays on race and transition in South Africa (2016). Qunta has also been a newspaper columnist, and her work has appeared in many publications, among them the anthology Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 1992).