Reporter
The photograph of Maimane in Anthony Sampson's book Drum: a venture into the new Africa (1956) "trilby on back of head, cigarette dangling " is an amusing take-off of the Hollywood 'newshound' image, but conceals his innate seriousness as a reporter and analyst of the world around him.
Under the pseudonym Arthur Mogale, Maimane wrote a regular series for Drum entitled The Chief where he described gangster incidents he had heard about in the shebeens. Don Mattera, a leading Sophiatown gangster took exception to this. The gangsters were pissed off with him and there was a word out that we should wipe this guy off.
He moved to Golden City Post as the news editor.
In 1958, Maimane moved to Ghana to work on the West African edition of Drum. In 1961, he moved to London. The young editor accepted a position at Reuters and was posted to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania as its East African correspondent. He met his second wife and, when he was deported from Tanzania, they both returned to London, England after refusing the founding editorship of Tanu's new daily and for critically reporting political events.
He worked for BBC's Africa Service at Bush House for a while and then moved to ITN.
After the elections in South Africa, he returned and was appointed Features editor of the liberal Weekly Mail. After a brief return to England he was appointed editor of the Star, South Africa’s biggest daily.
In 2001, Maimane and his wife returned to London
His novel Victims had been banned in South Africa but was republished in 2000 as Hate No More. His post-apartheid play, Hang On In There, Nelson, was performed at the Windybrow Theatre in Johannesburg and at the State Theatre in Pretoria, in 1996.
He died in 2005 in London.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Maimane
Famous quotes containing the word reporter:
“From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)