Pretoria - Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa will lead a delegation to the United States today to bring back the remains of exiled writer and journalist, Nathaniel “Nat” Ndazana Nakasa, for reburial on home soil.
This comes after the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Westchester, had granted permission for Nakasa’s remains to come home.
The South African government has been involved in the efforts to return Nakasa’s remains for the past two years.
Nakasa was born in 1937 in Chesterville, KwaZulu-Natal province. He distinguished himself as a transcendent voice in the world of journalism during the 1950s and early 1960s.
He worked for the isiZulu newspaper, ILanga Lase Natal, in Durban before joining Drum magazine in Johannesburg.
Nakasa was part of the iconic pantheon of Drum journalists, including Henry Nxumalo, Can Themba, Lewis Nkosi, Casey Motsisi and many others.
He was the first black columnist in Rand Daily Mail, a white liberal newspaper at the time.
In 1963, he founded The Classic, the first black-owned literary journal in South Africa. Nakasa was granted the prestigious Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard University in the US.
The apartheid government denied him a visa and he left South Africa on an exit permit in 1964.
As part of theNat Nakasa: Bringing Home a Hero project, the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) -- together with the Departments of Basic and Higher Education, in partnership with SANEF and Drum magazine -- will run the Nat Nakasa Essay Competition from 15 August to 12 September 2014.
The winners of the essay competition will be announced on 12 September 2014 at Nakasa’s memorial service. – SAnews.gov.za
