Durban author pens intriguing historical book
The latest book, entitled, Line Breakers: The rugby-playing sons of Makana and Stuurman is a poignant piece on how one of SA’s key national sports was played under tough apartheid-era conditions.
OUTSPOKEN Durban sociology academic, author and social commentator, Professor Ashwin Desai has launched a new book following his publishing debut 25 years ago. The latest book, entitled, Line Breakers: The rugby-playing sons of Makana and Stuurman is a poignant piece on how one of SA’s key national sports was played under tough apartheid-era conditions.
According to Marlan Padayachee, a Durban-based political and social commentator, media columnist and book reviewer of MapMedia GreenGold Consulting, the book was launched with Eastern Cape co-author and curator of black resistance political history and former rugby player and administrator Ashwell Adriaan, at Ike’s Bookstore and Collectables in Florida Road, Durban.
“The writers and researchers began collating details and data and interviewing personalities since 2006. They also shared their versions of making the historical book and the heritage of one of SA’s key national sports,” he said.
He added that the discussions also included information on how black and coloured communities played rugby under tough apartheid-era conditions without the support or playing fields.
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Padayachee added that Desai, who also worked closely with Professor Fatima Meer on the Poors of Chatsworth, is a former UDW-UKZN lecturer, and had written, researched, and published other books on sport such as Blacks in Whites: A Century of Black Cricket in KwaZulu-Natal; Sport in Post Post-apartheid South Africa, Reverse Sweep: The Story of Cricket in Post-apartheid South Africa, and recently, Wentworth: the Beautiful Game and the Making of Place.
Padayachee, said that Desai has now set the pace in the publishing world as a prolific writer and publisher, describing his excellent work and TV documentaries as a professor’s passion for penning powerful stories of the poignant and dramatic history from apartheid to the democratic state within a new nation at the crossroads of change and new social revolution, corruption, and unrest.
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