SAHO global search

1947

Dr Gurunathen (Guru) Kistnasamy

Guru Kistnasamy was born on 28 December 1947 in Felixton, Zululand, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). His father, Thaniachallam Kistnasamy Naicker, worked as a…

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Zulumathabo Zulu

Zulumathabo Zulu is a software engineer and published author of more than eight books and hundreds of articles including The Sesotho Dictionary of Mathematics,…

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1939-2022

Francis Wilson

Francis Aylmer Hunter Wilson is the oldest son of the anthropologists, Monica and Godfrey Wilson. He was born in May 1939 in Livingstone, Zambia. During this…

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Esmé Berman

Esmé Berman, a Jewish South African art historian, author and researcher, was born in 1929. She enrolled at the University of Witswatersrand in 1946 and…

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1938

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

The academic and social activist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was born James wa Thiong’o Ngugi in Limuru, Kenya on…

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1938

Aubrey Levin

Aubrey Levin was born in Johannesburg on 18 December 1938 to Jewish parents. Despite the National Party’s anti-Semitic exclusion of Jews from its ranks, Levin…

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1956-2017

Barend de Wet

Barend de Wet was born in Boksburg in 1956, and towards his untimely death had long become an emblematic figure of the artist, the possibilities of the…

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1966

Pule Pheto

Pule Pheto, son of activist and poet Molefe Pheto, was born in Soweto 1966. At The age of 12, his parents were exiled and the family moved to London where he…

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1941

Ray Berman

Born and bred in Johannesburg, Ray Berman left South Africa in 1966 to go into voluntary exile in Swaziland and has since become a national household name in…

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1851-1919

Francis Zaccharius Santiago Peregrino

Francis Zaccharius Santiago Peregrino was a journalist and public intellectual who, in the early 1900s, challenged notions of Black racial inferiority in the…

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1919

Olive Peace Landman

Beginnings Olive Peace Rosenberg was born in Knysna on 5 August 1919, the eldest daughter of Hendrika Jacoba Pieterse and Ellis Lawrence Rosenberg. Hendrika…

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1938-2016

Judith Mason

Born Judith Seelander Menge on 10 October 1938 in Pretoria, Judith Mason is one of the most well known South African artists. She matriculated from the…

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1934

Abdullah Ibrahim

South African musician, Abdullah Ibrahim was born on the 9 October 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa. Born Adolph Johannes Brand, he converted to Islam in 1968…

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1955

Adam Glasser

Adam Glasser was born on the 20th September, 1955 in Cambridge, England, then later moved to Johannesburg, South Africa with his family where he spent his…

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1918-1990

Frank Alexander Landman

Raised in the close knit community of Dowerville, Port Elizabeth (P.E.), Frank was the youngest of three sons and the third of the six surviving children of a…

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1936-1973

Benni Gwigwi Mrwebi

Gwigwi Mrwebi, also called ‘Bra Gwigwi’, whose birth name was Benni, was a well known alto saxophonist in the 1950’s South African Jazz scene. He taught…

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1949

Lefifi Tladi

The thinker, poet, and painter, Lefifi Tladi, was born in 1949 in the culturally vibrant township of Lady Selborne in Pretoria, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng…

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1942

Pitika Ntuli

Born in Springs, situated east of Johannesburg, Pitika Ntuli grew up with a keen interest in art. As a young man, he got involved in politics, and he was an…

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Judy Anne Seidman

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1933

Joyce Piliso-Seroke

Joyce Piliso-Seroke was born in Crown Mines, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng) on 11 July 1933. She completed her matric at Kilnerton High School in…

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1891-1955

Dora Nginza

Sister Dora Nginza was affectionately known as the “Mother of New Brighton” as a result of her commitment to helping the sick and downtrodden and adopting…

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Thomas G. Karis

Obituary by his son, Aleck Karis. Thomas G. Karis, a former foreign service officer who was a critic of U. S. policy on South Africa and who became a leading…

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1991

Mokgadi Caster Semenya

Mokgadi Caster Semenya was born on 7 January 1991 to her parents Dorus and Jacob Semenya. She was born in Ga-Masehlong, a village near Polokwane. As a child,…

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1958-2004

Martin Tose

The quiet and yet temperamental Martin Qgibinsizi Tose was born in Germiston, Johannesburg during the first decade of Apartheid. His birth coincided with the…

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1917

Bonakele Mali Khana

Bonakele Mali Khana was one of 616 South Africans that died when the SS Mendi sank in 1917.

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1935-1988

Sydney Alex Kumalo

Sydney Alex Kumalo was born in the middle of the colonial conquest of Africa, the same year that Benito Mussolini’s foreign armies invaded Abyssinia (later…

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1924-2019

Robert Gabriel Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on 21 February 1924, in Katama, a Jesuit mission station in the Zimbambe district, about 60km from Harare. He was the son of…

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1961

Dali Tambo

Dali Tambo is the son of the late former ANC President Oliver Tambo and his wife Adelaide Tambo, He has two sisters, Nomathemba and Tselane Tambo. When…

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1944-2017

Buchi Emecheta

Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta Obe ‘Buchi Emecheta’ was born in the Nigerian city of Lagos on 21 July in 1944 to Jeremy Nwabudinke, a railway worker and Alice …

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1940

Sindiso Mfenyana

Background and Childhood Sindiso Mfenyana is descended from the Bhele clan, which is an offshoot of the Hlubi tribe. He traces his roots back to a small town…

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