Obituaries

Lauretta Ngcobo (1931–2015) (Please note that this obituary could not be included in the 2016 edition of Natalia as submissions had closed: it is thus included in the 2017 volume)

AURETTA Ngcobo died in hospital in on LTuesday, 3 November 2015, at the age of 84, following a stroke. The daughter of teachers Rosa (née Cele) and Simon Gwina, Ngcobo was born and grew up in Ixopo, KwaZulu- Natal. She attended Inanda Seminary School, near , and became the first woman from her area to study at the . She taught for two years, before taking a job with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in . In 1957 she married Abednego Bhekabantu Ngcobo, a founder member of the executive of the Pan Africanist Congress, who in 1961 was imprisoned After being in exile between 1963 and for two years, under the Suppression 1994, Ngcobo returned to of Communism Act. He died in 1997. with her family, following the election In 1963, facing imminent arrest, in which the ANC came to power. In Ngcobo fled the country with her two South Africa she again taught for a young children, moving to Swaziland, while, before becoming a member of the , and finally , where KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, where she she was a school teacher for 25 years. spent 11 years, before retiring in 2008. She was eventually appointed head of In 2006, she received the Lifetime a south London school, where she was Achievement Literary Award and in the only black staff member, and in 2008 she was awarded the Order of 1984 she became president of ATCAL Ikhamanga for her work in literature (the Association for the Teaching of and in promoting gender equality. She Caribbean, African, Asian and Associ- was named an eThekwini Living Leg- ated Literatures). She found the time to end in 2012 and in 2014 she received write two novels, Cross of Gold (1981) an honorary doctorate of Technology and And They Didn’t Die (1990), and a in Arts and Design from the Durban children’s book, Fikile Learns to Like University of Technology. Other People (1994). She was the edi- Ngcobo is survived by her children, tor of Let it be Told: Essays by Black Luyanya, Zabantu, Nomkhosi, So- Women Writers in Britain (1987) and bantu and Zikethiwe, and her sister, Prodigal Daughters – Stories of South Thandekile. African Women in Exile (2012). DEBBIE WHELAN

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Natalia 47 (2017) CC-BY-NC cc Natal Society Foundation 2017