An insider look at ‘The Outsider’, ‘Truth to Power’ and time spent with Ella Blumenthal

At the Franschhoek Literary Festival last weekend, I was on two panels with Prince Mashele to discuss his book The Outsider – The unauthorized biography of Herman Mashaba.  

That was fortuitous as I read the book before it was withdrawn by Jonathan Ball Publishers after the Sunday Times revealed that it was both authorised and that moxie Mashele earned R12.5-million for writing it. 

An industry insider who has published the best-selling local non-fiction says the top authors have made between R1-million and R2-million from their books. Most authors earn R100,000 from royalties; the average income on a book that sells well is around R400,000 to R500,000. So R12.5-million is a princely sum. 

But how is the book, outside of its controversy?  

I enjoyed it. Mashele, a friend in our political writer circles, has a sophisticated style. And so, his location of Mashaba in the rise of political outsiders across the globe is on the mark analysis. 

Mashaba, he writes, is like the ascendance of outsiders to the epicentres of political power like Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement in Italy or that of Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema. In 2021, Mashaba and the Patriotic Alliance of Gayton McKenzie were the outlier stories of the local government election.  

The shape-shifting election of 2024 will see a further rise of outsider politicians as coalitions become the dominant political form.  

Mashele is a good analyst, and his global sense of politics is refreshing in a country where politics is often covered as factional intrigue rather than as a trend or sociology or political meaning in deeper insights of the word. 

It’s a pity you are now unlikely to read it because the book’s been pulled. It would have been a valuable part of the 2024 reading compendium. Still, ethics in publishing are vital to maintaining the sector’s integrity.  

The book is an authorised biography: Mashele likes Mashaba (and Mashaba clearly likes him back given the advance he paid). The most enjoyable part of the book is his account of how Mashaba rose to become the entrepreneur who started Black Like Me. This eponymous hair-care brand still defines him. His love affair and life with Connie Mashaba shape the life of Herman and of the book. If you know her, you will understand why Mashaba is worth watching ahead of 2024. 

The book does not explain or analyse the politician’s drift into the muddied waters of xenophobia. Taking a political whip to foreigners living in South Africa is the cheap shot of choice for parties ranging all the way from the ANC across the spectrum, and Mashaba has picked it up with zealousness. It’s a pity, and it would have been good to see Mashele interrogate this drift closely.   

De Ruyter’s book is a smash hit

Winnie & Nelson

I am Ella