Nat Nakasa

Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa (12 May 193714 July 1965), better known as Nat Nakasa, was a South African journalist and short story writer.

Early life Nat Nakasa was born in outside Durban, South Africa, on 12 May 1937; his mother Alvina was a teacher while his father Chamberlain was a typesetter and writer. After his reporting attracted the attention of Sylvester Stein of Drum magazine, Nakasa joined the magazine in 1957.

Nakasa soon found that racism existed in America as well, albeit more subtly than in South Africa. He did not like New York City and soon moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he spent his time at Harvard "steeped in the somber business of education". While attending the Nieman Fellowship, he participated in protest meetings against Apartheid at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Washington DC, and unsuccessfully attempted again to write an article for The New York Times. His remains were returned to South Africa on 19 August 2014. "This will hopefully bring closure to a horrific chapter that has remained a blight in our history for almost 50 years. His homecoming is the restoration of his citizenship and dignity as a human being", said Nathi Mthethwa, South Africa's minister of arts and culture.

He was re-buried on 13 September 2014 near his childhood home in Chesterville, a township outside Durban. The ceremony was preceded by a procession of his coffin through Chesterville before his remains were interred at Chesterville's Heroes Acre.

Books The World of Nat Nakasa: selected writings of the late Nat Nakasa/edited by Essop Patel; with an introduction by Nadine Gordimer, Ravan Press, 1971,