Noni Jabavu

Biography

Early years and education in England Noni Jabavu was born in Middledrift in the Eastern Cape into a family of intellectuals, the marriage of her parents forging a union between two of the most prominent Christian families in the Eastern Cape at the time. Her mother was Thandiswa Florence Makiwane, founder of Zenzele Woman's Self-Improvement Association; Her maternal aunt was Cecilia Makiwane, the first African registered professional nurse in South Africa and an early activist in the struggle for women's rights.

From the age of 13, Noni was educated in England, under the guardianship of Margaret and Arthur Bevington Gillett (alongside Mohan Kumaramangalam and his sister Parvati Krishnan), and she would continue to live there for many years. She later recalled: "Like a typical black child of those days, at 13 I was not too well primed about the negotiations that must have gone on between my parents and my prospective loco-parents, about the life they were planning for me which I was to learn in years to come, was to be a practical demonstration of the generations of friendship between families. I learned then that the plan was for me to be trained as a doctor to serve my people. But it misfired, for a medical doctor was the one thing I didn't want to be. I didn't know what I wanted to be."

Jabavu studied first at The Mount School, York, and later at London's Royal Academy of Music. Before the Second World War she had become uninterested in the Royal Academy of Music and concentrated mostly on left-wing student politics. In 1938, she was at a Prom concert in the Queen's Hall that was interrupted to be told of Neville Chamberlain's "peace for our time" settlement.

Post-war life: visits to South Africa and memoirs On the outbreak of the Second World War, she gave up studying to be a film technician and trained to become a semi-skilled engineer and oxyacetylene welder, working on bomber engine parts. After the war, she remained in London, where she married Denis Preston, jazz critic, radio presenter, journalist and record producer. She became a features writer and television personality, and worked for the BBC as a presenter and as a producer. She paid extended visits to South Africa until her marriage to the English film director Michael Cadbury Crosfield in 1951. Their marriage broke South Africa's miscegenation laws and because of the Immorality Act then in force, he could not accompany her. Thereafter, she also travelled and lived in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Uganda. Drawn in Colour was reprinted five times within the first year of its publication, and was also published in Italian in Milan under the title Il colore della pelle. She also did editorial work for The New Strand (the revived version of a century-old monthly renowned for publishing Conan Doyle), before being selected as its editor, a choice its proprietor Ernest Kay explained by saying: "Miss Jabavu has led such a varied life that she will bring a completely fresh outlook to the magazine. She certainly couldn't be conventional if she tried." She took up the role in December 1961, though resigned after eight months, deciding that she preferred to be a writer than an editor.

Describing herself as "a married woman first and a career woman second",

Jabavu's second book, The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life, published in 1963, was also a memoir, of which she said: "It is a personal account of an individual African's experiences and impressions of the differences between East and South Africans in their contact with Westernization." It too received acclaim, hailed by critics as "brilliant" and "fascinating".

Later years During time spent in South Africa in 1976–77, researching a book about her father, Jabavu published a weekly column in the East London (Eastern Cape) newspaper Daily Dispatch, under the editorship of Donald Woods. and was buried in East London, South Africa. Her legacy continues as she leaves behind her relatives, Mxolise Jabavu and others.

Legacy and influence Jabavu's family was reportedly in the process of making a documentary film about her life, started by Duma kaNdlovu (creator of the television show Muvhango), when funds provided by the Eastern Cape Arts Culture Council ran out.

Jabavu has been cited as a role model by Margaret Busby, the first Black African woman to found a publishing company in the UK, in 1967, who a few years earlier while still at school had read about Jabavu. Writing by Jabavu was included in Busby's 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa.

The book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home, a collection of her Daily Dispatch columns compiled and introduced by Makhosazana Xaba and Athambile Masola, was published in 2023.

In 2022, the book Nontando Noni Jabavu 1919–2008 was published by writer, editor and anthologist Asanda Sizani.