When award-winning journalist Zubeida Jaffer realised that “life is too short” she teamed up with her business partner and daughter Ruschka to launch her own publishing company Number10Publishers to preserve a body of Ms Jaffer’s work.
Number10Publishers was launched on Wednesday March 24.
“Through opening her own company she now owns the rights to her titles and also is able to earn from her work. Creatives are usually the last in the pecking order when it comes to receiving revenue from their own creative work,” said marketing communications manager Isabel Tapfumaneyi.
Number10Publishers are issuing Ms Jaffer’s three titles Our Generation; Love in the Time of Treason; and Beauty of the Heart (The Life and Times of Charlotte MannyaMaxeke) in print, electronic and audio versions.
Ms Jaffer said that the three books together provide an “interesting insight into South Africa’s national story stretching from 1871 through to 2001.”
Among the more than 90 people who logged on for the virtual launch were Justice Albie Sachs, Trevor Manuel and the Master of Ceremonies was Sylvia Vollenhoven (veteran journalist) and Bonang Mohale of Free State University.
The second component of the company will be to explore ways in which to codify 40 years of journalism experience in a form that could be of benefit to others instead of gathering dust in her study.
“This knowledge I hope to share with others over time,” Ms Jaffer said.
“When change first came, we had little or no understanding of publishing. Today there is a flurry of activity coming from young people and those who have left the established companies. I believe the impulse for something new will come from them.”
Ms Tapfumaneyi added: “We need to inspire our people that their stories are worth telling. We also need to tell all South Africans the truth about their own history so they too one day may live in informed ways. We need a new national narrative and we need to stop telling people that South Africa began in 1652 with Jan Van Riebeek. South African people deserve to know the truth about our history.”
Reflections on Human Rights Day