Jonty Driver

South African activist (1939–2023)

University of Cape Town
Trinity College, Oxford

Occupations

Anti-apartheid activist
former political prisoner
educationalist
poet
writer

Websitejontydriver.co.uk

Charles Jonathan Driver (19 August 1939 – 21 May 2023), usually known as Jonty Driver, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner, educationalist, poet and writer.

Early life

Charles Jonathan Driver was born in Cape Town in 1939 but spent the years of the Second World War in Kroonstad and Cradock with his mother and younger brother and his grandfather, who was the rector of the Anglican parish there. During this period, Driver's father did wartime service in North Africa, and was captured by the Axis forces at Tobruk, spending the rest of the war as a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. When he came back to South Africa, the family moved to Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, where his father was appointed chaplain at St. Andrew's College and where Jonty later did his schooling.^[1]^[2]

Student days

Driver did his undergraduate study at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He was elected president of the National Union of South African Students in 1963 and again in 1964. In August and September 1964, he was detained without trial by the police and held in solitary confinement, possibly because of his suspected involvement in the African Resistance Movement, on his release he immediately left for England.^[3] He went to Trinity College, Oxford, to read for an M.Phil.^[2]

While he was at Oxford, the South African authorities refused to renew his passport and he became stateless for several years, eventually becoming a British citizen. For more than twenty years, he was prohibited from returning to South Africa.^[2]

Work in education

After his time at Oxford, Driver taught at Sevenoaks School in Kent and then at Matthew Humberstone Comprehensive School in Lincolnshire (formerly Humberside)^[1] after 1973, where he was Director of Sixth-Form Studies. He wrote Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African^[4] while on a sabbatical from the school in 1976 and before taking up his next appointment.^[5]

In 1976, he was a Research Fellow at the University of York, and for 23 years he was a headmaster (Principal, Island School, Hong Kong, 1978–83; Headmaster, Berkhamsted School, 1983–9; Master, Wellington College, 1989–2000).^[2]^[6]

Writing career

As of November 2019, Driver was a full-time writer, though he continued his involvement in education.

Driver was as of November 2019^[update] an honorary senior lecturer at the School of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia,^[7] a post he held since 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Driver was a judge for the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2007 and 2008. He was a fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation in 2007. He was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, USA, in the fall of 2009, and a fellow at the Hawthornden Writers' Retreat in March/April 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life and death

Jonty Driver was married, with three children and eight grandchildren.^{[citation needed]} He died on 21 May 2023, at the age of 83.^[8]^[9]^[10]

Selected works

History of the Relations Between NUSAS, the ASB and the Afrikaans University Centres: Covering the Period 1960–1963. Supplement. National Union of South African Students. 1964. with Adrian Leftwich
Jack Cope. D. Philip. 1979. ISBN 978-0-908396-11-5.
Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African. Heinemann. 1980. ISBN 978-0-435-96200-5.
- Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African (Paperback ed.). James Currey. 2000. ISBN 9780852557730.
Elegy for a Revolutionary. David Philip. 1984. ISBN 978-0-86486-015-6.
Hong Kong Portraits. Perpetua Press. 1986. ISBN 978-0-9511667-0-3.
"Used to be Great Friends". Granta: 7–26. 2002.
So Far: Selected Poems, 1960–2004. Snailpress. 2005. ISBN 978-1-904724-27-8.
A Messiah of the Last Days. Faber & Faber. 2010. ISBN 978-0-571-27000-2.
Death of Fathers. Faber & Faber. 2011. ISBN 978-0-571-26050-8.
Send War in Our Time, O Lord. Faber & Faber. 2011. ISBN 978-0-571-25965-6.
The Man with the Suitcase: The Life, Execution and Rehabilitation of John Harris, Liberal Terrorist. Cape Town: Crane River. 2015. ISBN 9780620668521.
"Alan Paton's Hofmeyr". Race & Class. 6 (4): 269–280. 1965. doi:10.1177/030639686500600403. ISSN 0306-3968. S2CID 143844131.
"Rhodes? The swine did some good". Rand Daily Mail. 20 March 2015.
Some Schools. John Catt Educational. 30 November 2016. ISBN 9781909717978. (About the five schools at which Driver worked)
Before. Crane River in association with the Africa Sun Press. August 2018. ISBN 9781909717978. (A collection of 22 poems)

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b SAHO.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Eve 2003, p. 8.
^ Theron 2004, p. 105.
^ Driver 1980.
^ Driver 2000.
^ Sleeman 2003, p. 94–.
^ "School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing". University of East Anglia. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
^ "Wellington College". 23 May 2023.
^ "In memoriam: Jonty Driver 1939-2023 - OPINION | Politicsweb". www.politicsweb.co.za. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
^ Skinner, Douglas Reid (24 May 2023). "OBITUARY: CJ 'Jonty' Driver – farewell to a great man of letters". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 12 June 2023.

Sources

Eve, Jeanette (2003). A Literary Guide to the Eastern Cape: Places and the Voices of Writers. Juta and Company Ltd. ISBN 978-1-919930-15-2.
Sleeman, Elizabeth (2003). Europa Publications (ed.). International Who's Who in Poetry 2004. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-85743-178-0.
Theron, Bridget (2004). The Road to Democracy in South Africa: 1970–1980. Unisa Press. ISBN 978-1-86888-406-3.
"Jonty Driver". South African History Online. Retrieved 11 August 2014.