Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang the biographer of late cultural icon Dolly Rathebe launches three books on one day

The launch of Dolly Rathebe, The Daughters of Nandi and Queen Nozidiya Mother of Zulu!, on Saturday, at Book Circle Capital in Melville, was as informative about South Africa’scultural history involving formidable women characters, as it was humorous.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

It is not always the case that you go to a book launch, and listen to an author, who is lively, animated and ready to share with the audience aspects of her inspiration to write books. This is because writing is a lonely business, and writers generally prefer to work in isolation, creating those characters that ultimately make a reading experience an engaged exercise. But again, there comes a time when they need to engage with readers, in a way peform their writing through reading and giving readers their writing process. That way that act of interacting with readers makes readers to be close to the book and the characters in it by engaging with the author of the book.

However many a writer, including really good ones, who create a wonder world with their writing and the characters populating the pages of the book, struggle when it comes to the public ‘performance’ of their writing. In some cases, it is either they are simply not good public readers, shy, or simply snobbish to engage readers meaningfully about their work.

Writer Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang, is however not one of them. The type of writer I have described above. This fact was clear on Saturday, August 15, 2026, at the launch, rather relaunch of her books.

Not one but three books that Mazibuko-Msimangre-launched and for which she generously shared her journey with an audience made up of mainly women, an apt audience really, in that the relaunch of these books happened against the backdrop of Women’s Month. Among notable audience members were Sheila Masote, who and her late husband, the first black person to get a licentiate for conducting an orchestra at UNISA, are credited with promoting classical music among black people, dating back to the years of Apartheid to democratic South Africa by creating succeful organisations promoting classical music in South Africa. Sheila is the daughter of the late Pan Africanist Congress leader Bra Zeph Mothopeng. Well known cellist and conductor Kutlwano Masote is Sheila and Michael’s son.

And of course there were men there too, about three, maybe even five, including Yours Truly, who came to celebrate this literary milestone with Mazibuko at 27 Boxes in Melville at Book Circle Capital.

Among the men who turned up are author and ANC veteran Mavuso-Msimang, accompanied by his family, and former BBC Africa-Editor-in- Chief and Media Consultant Milton Nkosi.

And the books themselves are about women, and not just ordinary women, but women of substance, who, have contributed immensely to arts and culture and leadership in this country.
You see, Mazibuko-Msimang used her research fellowship at University of Pretoria, where she currently is, to look into the life and times of the late cultural icon Dolly Rathebe, who blazed a wonderful trail as a composer, performer, actress and super model with a career that began in the 1950s of the cultural melting pot of Sophiatown.

The result of that literary endeavour is the book, If there is any musician who represented the creativity, the defiance of the obstacles put by the then South African Aparthied government on the way of black people towards self-actualisation and creating a substantive life, Rathebe is among them.

Many will remember Rathebe’s iconic photograph on the front page of Drum Magazine, the first women to grace that cover for the pan African magazine, and that caused a controversy6 of its own at the time. Problem being that The photographer was white, the late Jurden Schaderberg, who after leaving Germany after the Second World war, settled in South Africa and made his name as a photographer for Drum Magazine.

Drum was at the forefront of capturing black urban life, particularly in Sophiatwon. Not as subjects, but brave people that had agency and lived lives of their own irrespective of Apartheid.
Rathebe emerged alongside others such as Thandi Klaasen, Dorothy Masuka, Miriam Makeba and others, who alongside their male counterparts, such as the late Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and others, created a different narrative for black urban life, different from the one painted to the world by Apartheid.

On Saturday, July 15, 2026, at Book Circle Capital, Mazibuko was there to talk about her books in a session facilitated by Sewela Langeni from Books Circle Capital.

The event framed as a celebration of writing women stories with Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang focused on the three books that Msimang has published: Dolly Rathebe, The Daughters of Nandi and Queen Nozidiya Mother of Zulu!, under the theme of Love and Leadership.
Msimang in conversation with Sewela Langen explored the lives, influence and leadership of these three remarkable women who made history in South Africa.

Though the audience was small, the discussion was lively, and the audience participated in the discussion that was filled by Mazibuko’s animated talk, punctuated by humour, singing and all, in which the audience was asked to participate.
And what is especially notable in Msimang’s framing of these three formidable women, is the fact that she has looked at them as human beings that were not perfect, irrespective their stature, they made mistakes and difficult decisions in life that affected others.
For example, she told of well-known stale of a beef between the two cultural icons, Miriam Makeba and Rathebe, that took 10 years to dissolve.

“’What happened to get the two to speak to each other after 10 years of not speaking to one another, is that Marah Louw invited both of them to her house, without telling Miriam that Dorothy was also invited, and without also telling Dorothy that Miriam was also going to be there.

“When both of them rocked up, drama unfolded as Dorothy started speaking relentlessly in Afrikaans swearing at Dorothy, for something like 30 minutes. Everybody asked that doors be locked so that nobody could leave. Jonas Gwangwa, who was also a guest, left, leaving his wife behind, and said he knew that Dorothy carries a knife, and therefore would not like to witness crime. But then after all this, something happened. Both started laughing, embracing each other,”Msimang explained as the audience broke into a laughter about how 10 yearlong the beef ended, ended between the two icons in Marah Louw’s house where they were forced to face each other.

“You want to know the reason for the beef,” Msimang Mazibuko teased the audience before saying, “Well, that is adult stuff,’and laughed.

And so the launch by Dolly Rathebe’s biographer, Dr Nokuthula-Masimang on Saturday, at Book Circle Capital, was informative about our cultural history involving formidable women characters, as it was humorous.