Agenda

24 Settembre 2026 h. 12.45
San Sebastiano, Sala Trifore
Dorsoduro,1686, Campo San Sebastiano, 30123 Venezia

Original Apartheid Hustler
The fiction and fabrications of Dugmore Boetie
Benjamin N. Lawrance

Benjamin N. Lawrance is Professor of History at the University of Arizona. He co-authored the book on the South African writer, Dugmore Boetie, with Vusumuzi Kumalo.
Introduction and discussion: Barbara De Poli (Ca’ Foscari University Venice), Francesco Vacchiano (Ca’ Foscari University Venice)

Original Apartheid Hustler is the remarkable story of an enigma, Dugmore Boetie, a writer best known for the posthumously published Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost (1969), his humorous autobiographical novel narrating the topsy-turvy life, from the 1920s to 1950s, of a fictionalised Sophiatown-born youth.
Engaging multiple registers, Original Apartheid Hustler is a biographical study, a literary deconstruction of Boetie’s writings, and a decolonial meditation on apartheid-era exploitation and erasure. Based on archival research and interviews with Boetie’s family and friends today, the authors take the reader on a quest to understand Boetie’s background, his struggle to find his place as an artist and writer, and his collaborations and interactions with prominent Black and white intellectuals, including Ruth First, Nat Nakasa, Nadine Gordimer, and Barney Simon. Simon was instrumental in bringing international attention to Boetie’s work, but also asserted control over his copyright and ultimately shaped Boetie’s legacy. Drawing on historical and literary analysis, Benjamin N. Lawrance and Vusumuzi R. Kumalo unravel the webs of fact, fantasy, and myth, exposing the highly racialised socio-cultural, political, legal, and intellectual violence Boetie and his legacy suffered during and after apartheid. They reveal Boetie’s resilient self-fashioning, his multiple fabricated identities, and the concealment of his disability and political activities.Original Apartheid Hustler is a profound new contribution to debates about authorship, privilege, legacy, and race, from the twentieth century to the present day.