writer; journalist
Personal Information
Born on March 19, 1919, in Vrededorp, South Africa, near Johannesburg; son of James Henry Abrahams Deras and Angelina DuPlessis; married Dorothy Pennington, 1942 (divorced, 1948); married Daphne Elizabeth Miller, June 1, 1948; children: Anne, Aron, Naomi.
Education: Grace Dieu Diocesan College, Pietersburg, South Africa; St. Peter's Secondary School, Johannesburg.
Military/Wartime Service: Merchant Marine, 1939-41.
Memberships: International PEN; Society of Authors; Authors League; Radio Jamaica, chairman, 1978-80.
Career
Daily Worker, London, England, contributor, 1941-52; novelist, 1942-; The Observer, London, correspondent, 1952-54; New York Herald Tribune, correspondent, 1952-54; Radio Jamaica, radio journalist, 1957-; West Indian Economist, Jamaica, journalist, 1958-62.
Life's Work
With the publication of his seminal novel Mine Boy in 1946, Peter Abrahams became the first author to bring the horrific reality of South Africa's apartheid system of racial discrimination to international attention. Published two years before Alan Paton's acclaimed Cry, The Beloved Country, which also exposed the tragedy of apartheid, Mine Boy was also significant because it made Abrahams one of the first black South African authors to become financially successful. With over a dozen books and countless newspaper and magazine articles published, Abrahams has since become established as an authority on the problems of race not only in South Africa, but in the world. Throughout his career he has consciously made the decision to present a non-white, non-Western view of the world. He did this, as he explained in his 1954 autobiography Tell Freedom, "not as protest or criticism, but as part of the ongoing search for 'balance' in the desire to assert [the non-Westerner's] place in tomorrow's world."
From Slums to Shakespeare
Peter Henry Abrahams was born on March 19, 1919, in Vrededorp, near Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of a black African father and a mixed French/African mother. This mulatto background made Abrahams "coloured" according to racial divisions in South Africa. Though at the time of his birth, apartheid was nearly 30 years away from being institutionalized, racial discrimination was endemic and, as "coloured," Abrahams was considered just barely above the lowest class, "Bantu" or black. His father, Peter Henry Abrahams Deras, had migrated to South Africa from Ethiopia and died when Abrahams was just a boy. His death sent the family--already on the brink of poverty--even deeper into destitution. Abrahams' mother, Angelina DuPlessis, struggled with poor health and was often unable to work. As a result Abrahams, along with elder siblings Harry and Maggie, was shuffled between the households of extended family members in the slums surrounding Johannesburg.
In order to pay his way into school Abrahams began to work odd jobs at a very young age, including stints as a tinsmith's helper, a kitchen worker, and a dishwasher. When he finally began school at the age of nine, he was--like most children in the slums--illiterate. However, Abrahams quickly learned how to read and made up for lost time by immersing himself in English classics such as the Romantic poets and Shakespeare, as well as any other book he could get his hands on. Books were a welcome refuge from the harshness of his daily life and he wanted more. As fate would have it, Abrahams soon landed a job at the Bantu Men's Social Centre. There he was introduced to the works of black American writers and thinkers such as Langston Hughes and W. E. B. Du Bois.
Deeply inspired by the world of literature, Abrahams began writing short stories at the age of 11. His literary training expanded when he enrolled in Grace Dieu, a Diocesan school located near the northern city of Pietersburg. A religious training ground for would-be teachers, the school exposed Abrahams to the literary history of the ruling Afrikaner class. Impressed by the beauty of the language, Abrahams tried his hand at writing verse in Afrikaans. He was also strongly influenced by the literary aspects of the Bible. Elements of this religious influence can be seen in some of his earliest novels.
Abrahams left Grace Dieu after two years and returned to Johannesburg where he enrolled at St. Peter's Secondary School. A well-regarded school for non-whites, St. Peter's was home to a number of progressive thinkers actively seeking ways to deal with the oppression of racism. Abrahams was particularly impressed by the Marxists; some of his earlier works were decidedly Marxist in tone. While a student at both Grace Dieu and St. Peter's, Abrahams published several stories and poems. According to Michael Wade, a scholar of Abrahams' work, writing in the Southern African Review of Books, "these works made their impact on the tiny community of black writers in the late 1930s." Whites noticed his talent too and in 1938 a British newspaper featured an article about Abrahams, calling him the "Coloured Boy Poet."
Meanwhile, Abrahams had left school early in a fruitless attempt to find work as a journalist. Marxist papers found him too conservative, black papers found him too radical, and white papers simply would not hire a non-white. Unable to find writing work and with racial tension in South Africa reaching a boiling point, Abrahams decided it was time to leave. "I had to escape or slip into that negative destructiveness that is the offspring of bitterness and frustration," he wrote in his 1953 book Return to Goli.
Began Writing South African Novels in England
In 1939 Abrahams took a job on a merchant marine ship and spent two years at sea before finally disembarking in England. He never returned to live in South Africa. In England he became a regular contributor to the Daily Worker, a Communist paper, and married his first wife, Dorothy Pennington. He soon began pursuing writing with a vengeance. He was determined to reveal to the outside world the harrowing consequences of the racial divisions that marred the South African social and political landscape. Not only was he concerned with how governmental policies oppressed non-whites, but also how non-whites often wittingly became part of the problem, drawing divisions amongst themselves and retreating into violence.
Three of his earliest works illustrated this duality: 1942's short story collection Dark Testament, 1945's novel Song of the City, and 1946's Mine Boy. The latter, described by Black Issues Book Review as "a prophetic and revealing novel in which his portrayal of South African racism predated the formal declaration of apartheid," was the first literary work to address the dehumanizing effects of the South African racial system. The book established Abrahams as an international literary force and went onto become a classic.
With its publication, Abrahams was also making a political statement. South African "coloureds" often held themselves apart from "Bantus," effectively reinforcing the racial divisions imposed by the Afrikaner government. With Mine Boy--as well as his subsequent work--Abrahams sided with his black countrymen and declared the fight against racism to be something that all non-whites should take part in. As Abrahams' literary career took off, his first marriage floundered and he divorced in 1948. However, in June of that same year he married artist Daphne Elizabeth Miller, whom he later credited as the love of his life in his 2000 book, The Black Experience in the Twentieth Century. The couple would have three children together.
Abrahams's next novel, The Path of Thunder, explored interracial love in South Africa and was published in 1948, the year that apartheid was adopted as law in South Africa. Wild Conquest, a historical novel which rethought the role of South Africa's black ethnic groups in the development of modern South Africa was published in 1950. In 1952 Abrahams returned to South Africa and Kenya as a newspaper correspondent for London's Observer and the New York Herald Tribune. From his travels grew 1953's Return to Goli, a powerful commentary on race relations. This was followed by his 1954 autobiography Tell Freedom which covered the first 20 years of his life. His next novel, A Wreath for Udomo, was published in 1956 just as African independence from European colonial rule was getting underway. It was a fictionalized examination of the difficulties African governments would encounter as they had to choose between the financial benefits of establishing ties with apartheid South Africa versus the sacrificing of those benefits by supporting black liberation movements. It presented a very pessimistic outlook for post-colonial Africa that in many instances sadly proved to be prophetic.
Resettled in Jamaica and Resumed Journalism
In 1955 Abrahams was hired to write a book about Jamaica for the British government for its Corona Library series. During the course of researching the book--1957's Jamaica: An Island Mosaic--Abrahams fell in love with the country and in 1956 he and his family relocated there. "The land is glorious, the people, at their best (and we were fortunate to have known some of the best) without peer: open, warm-hearted, imaginative, and with great generosity of spirit," he told the World and I. He soon became interested in Jamaican politics and began working as a news commentator for Radio Jamaica. From 1958 to 1962 he also held the post of editor of the Jamaica-based West Indian Economist. In the late 1970s he was chairman for Radio Jamaica and helped restructure the business to become more profitable.
However, he continued to write. In 1965 he published A Night of Their Own, described by Wade as "a response to the crushing defeat inflicted on the South African liberation movement." This was followed by Abrahams' first novel not based in South Africa, 1966's This Island Now. In it, Abrahams explores the role of history and race in the politics of a fictional Caribbean island, presenting a very dismal forecast for the future of Caribbean nations. Following its publication, Abrahams did not produce another novel for 19 years. However, as Wade noted, Abrahams was far from idle. "Actually, there were plenty of rumblings on the non-leviathan scale: gifted travel journalism, political writing in the Jamaican press, radio work, intense and politicized involvement in Jamaican cultural life.... Books and articles were written about him and his work, but not a novel did he produce."
Abrahams returned to the literary forefront with his 1985 historical novel The View from Coyaba, which follows four generations of a Jamaican family and the ongoing struggle for black autonomy. Wade noted that with this novel, "[Abrahams' aim was] nothing less than the reinscription of the history of black folk. He reviews the entire history of the relationship between whites and blacks in the old and new worlds from the beginnings of black slavery." Though it was well-received by critics, some dismissed it as more a political treatise than a novel. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Abrahams once again turned his attention to political commentary, journalism, and travel writing. As he explained to the World and I, he had no regrets about this shifting of focus from fiction to journalism. "The African (and the Jamaican) in me placed and places a high premium on family. Family needs regular and sustained and stable social and economic support. Journalism was the most flexible and compatible of all second occupations for a writer; so, apart from time, there was no conflict, no real frustration. And I was fortunate to go into a socially useful branch of journalism. I enjoyed doing both and saw my family fed, housed, schooled."
Abrahams's next major foray into literature was The Black Experience in the Twentieth Century: An Autobiography and Meditation published in 2000. Despite the ambitious title, the novel is a final installment in Abrahams' autobiographical series. Calling it a "literary, political, and historical autobiography," Research in African Literatures described it as "an enthralling and fascinating book that aptly captures the author's literary odyssey and vision of the world." The review continued, "Abrahams' autobiography is a moving farewell from a man who has lived and has much to impart. His commitment to truth and the telling of freedom has not been easy, but he dared to hope, write, and speak."
Works
Selected writings
- Dark Testament, Allen & Unwin, 1942; Kraus Reprint, 1970.
- Song of the City, Dorothy Crisp, 1945.
- Mine Boy, Dorothy Crisp, 1946; Knopf, 1955; Collier Books, 1970.
- The Path of Thunder, Harper, 1948; Chatham Bookseller, 1975.
- Wild Conquest, Harper, 1950; Anchor Books, 1970.
- Return to Goli, Faber & Faber, 1953.
- Tell Freedom, Knopf, 1954; Knopf, 1969; Macmillan, 1970.
- A Wreath for Udomo, Knopf, 1956; Collier Books, 1971.
- A Night of Their Own, Knopf, 1965.
- This Island Now, Faber, 1966; Knopf, 1967; revised edition, Faber & Faber, 1985.
- The View from Coyaba, Faber & Faber, 1985.
- The Black Experience in the Twentieth Century: An Autobiography and Meditation, Indiana University Press, 2000.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Black Issues Book Review, May 2001, p. 58.
- Research in African Literatures, Fall 2002, p. 235.
- World and I, March 2002, p. 260.
- "Peter Abrahams at 70," Southern African Review of Books, www.uni-ulm.de/rturrell/antho4html/Wade.html (March 23, 2003).
— Candace LaBalle
