LAUSR

Introduction Archie Dick authored The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Culture (2012). Among other things, Dick argues that “the evidence of common reading illuminates the mentalities and world views of ordinary South Africans. Why and how they participated in larger historical developments or refused to do so becomes clearer when we investigate their hidden book and reading cultures” (142). Several reviewers considered Dick’s book a “watershed”. Among them, Daniel Magaziner references the book as a “slim but revealing volume [in which] Dick analyses the other side of the literary exchange—not the word as written, but its reception, circulation, and life among a variety of reading publics [...] This story adds texture to our understanding of intellectual life across South African history” (1024). Isabel Hofmeyr has high praise for “Dick’s marvellous book that draws together the fragmented field of scholarship on books and reading, providing a first book-length study on this topic” (215). Hofmeyr also appreciates “a fascinating chapter on the library at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, [which] shows how rank-and-file readers generally escaped the serious political reading their leaders wanted them to consume and instead read lifestyle magazines” (217). These observations accord well with my reading of The Hidden History, enabling an insightful discourse between my life history and Dick’s endeavours. Reading Dick’s The Hidden History iteratively through the lens of my life history with libraries and books has been illuminating about aspects of my growing up in Apartheid South Africa and my life in exile, periods, and experiences that intersect with substantial parts of Dick’s treatise, particularly his Chapters 5, 6, and 7. In meditating on Dick’s thesis, I have learned, as he intended, to understand the meaning and significance of these experiences and efforts by locating them in the larger story he presents. While I find my personal story embedded in Dick’s efforts at unearthing and making sense of our national experience, my life history also unveils remarkable nuances, deepening my appreciation of the valuable contribution of The Hidden History in enabling a richer appreciation of the complex South African experience.