The New African 1962-1968

Digital Innovation South Africa

The New African Volume 1 No 1 was published in January 1962. The four founders, Randolph Vigne, Neville Rubin, James Currey and Timothy Holmes wrote copiously - leaders, articles and reviews - often under pseudonyms The first subscribers to the periodical were drawn from the Liberal Party circle. Contributors to those early issues were mostly South Africans, with a few from Britain and only three from elsewhere. The magazine’s character, largely English-speaking South African and liberal, was forward looking in the post- Sharpeville time of hope, and original in its commingling of culture and politics. 1964, the year of doom for the Cape Town imprint with increasing harassment by the Security Police, saw the very last issue to be printed in South Africa, dated 11 July 1964. The New African reappeared again from London in March 1965 and by the end of that year all ten issues of Volume 4 had been published. As the editorial of No 52, the last of the old order, put it in 1969: ‘Seven years and 52 issues after its beginning The New African’s aim, to provide a place for independent radical thinking and creative writing about Africa, is as relevant as it was at the outset. Its dominant themes, the advance of a united Africa and the liberation of its southern peoples, are more urgent than before, since this time has seen massive setbacks to both processes. The final issue of The New African, No 53, went through the press in London but despite efforts to transfer to Africa, it proved impossible. Almost all the brave new journals established in the sixties in Africa disappeared.