Remembering Nat Nakasa
The grave of Nat Nakasa, lies somewhat forgotten in a cemetery somewhere in upstate New York.
His gravestone simply reads:
“Nathaniel Nakasa May 12 1937 - July 14 1965. Journalist, Nieman Fellow, South African.”
This is a lonely image of Nat, separated from family and friends, in an environment so foreign from the bustling urban South African cityscape, distilled into three unfeeling titles, which fail whole heartedly to capture this vibrant voice of South African journalism. This remoteness might echo the loneliness and disconnect that drove 28 year-old Nat to jump off the 7th story of the New York building, an exiled South African, with no hope of returning home.
I stumbled across Nat in a similarly forgotten way. I was rummaging through the University of Johannesburg’s archives when I found an old issue of “The Classic,” the literary journal that Nat Nakasa started, with help from Nadime Gordimer. In a way my first encounter with Nat was his end, as the issue was a memorial to him.
However Nat’s end is not that I want to remember. Instead, I want to spend some time revisiting Nat’s beginning as editor for “The Classic.” Can Themba beautifully reminisces on this time with his old friend, recounting the story such:
One day, we met at a dry cleaners called the “Classic.” Nat bought the drinks and said he had an idea. Ideas were sprouting all over the place, but any excuse for a drink was good enough.
After the ninth we got around to discussing the idea. Nat proposed starting a really good, artistic magazine. He wanted all of us – and I don’t mean just those Non-White journalists present – but all of us: Black, White, Coloured, Indian. For want of superior inspiration we decided to call the damn thing “The Classic” – the place where it was conceived, born and most of the time bred. Most of us got stinkingly drunk, but Nat captained the boat with a level head and saw to it that we met dead-line.
When I think of the journalist and South African writer, Nat Nakasa, this is the image I want to remember. Nat surrounded by friends, inspired by words and ways to create a space to cultivate them. South African literature that is not constricted by colour or an apartheid government’s dictations.
As Nadime Gordimer writes in her rememberings – “Nat was gone. He never came back. But he was the beginning, not the end of something.” It is this beginning that is Nat Nakasa. The Nat Nakasa that was so much more than simply: Journalist, Nieman Fellow, South African.