The Cape Town Intellectuals: Ruth Schechter and her Circle

by Baruch Hirson

A mixture of biography, love story, intellectual history and political analysis, this fascinating book focuses on the life of novelist, political activist and thinker, Ruth Schechter, and those of her friends and associates in Cape Town in the first three decades of the 20th century. Her friendships and correspondents embraced Gandhi, Olive Schreiner, Laurens van der Post, Lancelot Hogben, much of the Cape Town revolutionary left and parliamentarian colleagues of her first husband, Morris Alexander. In this painstakingly researched work, which draws on a wide range of private archival material and ephemeral literature, Hirson succeeds not only in reconstructing the life of a personality who deserves a wider reputation but also that of a fascinating and little studied intellectual milieu.

253 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000