Nat Nakasa

(1937 - 1965)

Born in Durban in 1937, Nat Nakasa founded The Classic, the Johannesburg-based literary journal, in 1962. He was new as an editor, having up to then been a writer for Drum; one friend advised him not to “ignore potential contributors as rudely as you do.” In 1964 he traveled on a one-way “exit permit” to Harvard University for a journalism fellowship. The next year, unable to either return home or stay without citizenship, he jumped to his death from a friend’s apartment in New York City.