Award-winning publisher, Melinda Ferguson, of MFBooks Joburg, an imprint of Jacana Media, is ending 2016 on a high. Winner of the prestigious 2016 Sunday Times Alan Paton award for Rape: A South African Nightmare by Dr Pumla Dineo Gqola, MFBooks promises to inject its bestseller magic into the book industry next year with the much-anticipated memoir, Being Chris Hani’s Daughter, co-authored by Lindiwe Hani and Ferguson. In this intimate and brutally honest memoir, Lindiwe Hani, now 35 years old, recalls the years she shared with her father, Chris, her hero, and the toll that his untimely death took on the Hani family when she was 12. Hani lays family skeletons bare and brings to the fore her own downward spiral into cocaine and alcohol addiction, a desperate attempt to avoid the pain of his brutal parting. While the nation continued to revere and honour her father’s legacy, for Lindiwe, being Chris Hani’s daughter became an increasingly heavy burden to bear. For as long as I can remember, I’d grown up feeling that I was the daughter of Chris Hani and that I was useless. My father was such a huge figure, such an icon to so many people, it felt like I could never be anything close to what he achieved – so why even try? Of course, my addiction to booze and cocaine just made me feel my worthlessness even more. In a stunning turnaround, Lindiwe Hani faces her demons, not just those that haunted her through her addiction but, with the courage that comes with sobriety, she comes face to face with her father’s two killers. The book reveals the exclusive meetings she had with both Clive Derby-Lewis before he succumbed to cancer in November 2016, and her father’s killer Janusz Walus, still serving a life sentence for her father’s assassination on 10 April 1993. In a breathtaking twist of humanity, while searching for the truth behind her father’s assassination, Lindiwe Hani ultimately makes peace with herself and honours her father’s gigantic spirit.
