Contemporary Campus Life

Abstract

It is with a certain hesitation that one opens a new book about the work experience written by a former colleague. Flicking nervously to the index I am relieved to see my name is not mentioned, only moments later to be mortified on flicking through his 244-page apologia to see my name up in lights. So, we shall start with a shoddy index. That and the 1970s drab brown cover do not speak well for a good read. Then the acknowledgements contain this ominous paragraph: ‘These chapters are constituted and rewritten from columns published in UKZNdabaOnline, with others from UKZNtouch, SUBtext, Wits Review, the Sunday Times and some other published and original materials. The first of these he wrote as the Griot, the oral storyteller of African communities. The chapters have been edited, updated and the original ideas elaborated on and offered here in essay form, rather than as columns.’ So, the 1970s are pushed back to the 1950s when in South Africa the common if quaintly outdated practice of selected published columns actually sold books. A quarter of a century ago I recall advising a celebrated journalist and broadcaster not to even think of such a retrograde step. And yet, like some remarkable madcap Grand Design, Tomaselli has succeeded where others have failed. The book is a success.