Ros de Lanerolle (22 January 1932 – 23 September 1993),Haward, Pat, "Jennifer Rosalynde de Lanerolle 1932–1993" (obituary), ''

History Workshop Journal The ''History Workshop Journal'' is a British academic history journal published by Oxford University Press. ''History Workshop'' was founded in 1976 by Raphael Samuel and others involved in the History Workshop movement. Originally sub-titled "A ...

'' (1994), 37 (1):261–266, Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/hwj/37.1.261. also known as Rosalynde Ainslie, was a South African activist, journalist and publisher. Having settled in Britain in the 1950s, she campaigned actively against

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, and later became a pioneering figure in women's publishing in the UK, called by

Florence Howe Florence Rosenfeld Howe (March 17, 1929 – September 12, 2020) was an American author, publisher, literary scholar, and historian who is considered to have been a leader of the contemporary feminist movement. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New ...

"the doyenne of feminist publishers".

Life and career

Jennifer Rosalynde Ainslie was born in 1932 in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, where she went to school and attended the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, before moving to London, England, in 1954 as a graduate student of English literature.Arianna Lissoni
"The South African liberation movements in exile, c. 1945–1970"
PhD thesis submitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, January 2008. Retrieved 16 April 2014. A radical socialist, she became increasingly involved with the politics of Southern Africa, and on a 1958 visit to

Northern Rhodesia Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in southern Africa, south central Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-West ...

, hoping to meet South African trade unionists working there, she was taken into custody, declared undesirable, and deported. She became London representative of the anti-apartheid quarterly journal ''

Africa South Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

'', edited by

Ronald Segal Ronald Michael Segal (14 July 1932 – 23 February 2008) was a South African activist, writer and editor, founder of the anti-apartheid magazine '' Africa South'' and the Penguin African Library.Denis Herbstein"Ronald Segal"(obituary), ''The Gua ...

,Christabel Gurney
"The origins of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement"
African National Congress website. and interacted closely with other South African exiles, including Ruth First, with whom she formed a close 20-year friendship. De Lanerolle was a member of the Boycott Movement (others included Peter Koinange,

Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...

and Steve Naidoo) founded in London on 26 June 1959, campaigning around the call by

Albert Luthuli Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli ( – 21 July 1967) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, traditional leader, and politician who served as the President-General of the African National Congress from 1952 until his death in 1967. Luthuli wa ...

to boycott South African exports. In 1960 she was a prime initiator, together with

Vella Pillay Vella Pillay (8 October 1923 – 29 July 2004) was a South African international economist and a founding member of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. He was a member of the South African Communist Party and coordinated the party's overseas ac ...

and

Abdul Minty Abdul Minty (otherwise known as Abdul Samad Minty) (born 31 October 1939) is a South African diplomat. He is currently ambassador of his country to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He was a candidate for th ...

, of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) in Britain, and was its first secretary."De Lanerolle, Ros (UK publisher)"
in Cheryl Law, ''Women, A Modern Political Dictionary'',

I.B. Tauris I.B. Tauris is an educational publishing house and imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. It was an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York City until its purchase in May 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing. It specialises in non- ...

, 2000, p. 202. She wrote two important pamphlets, published by AAM: ''Unholy Alliance'' (1961), analysing the support that the British military and business community and government gave to the white-minority

Verwoerd Verwoerd is a surname originating from the Netherlands. Notable people with the surname include: *Betsie Verwoerd (1901–2000), spouse of the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until the assassination of her husband Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966. ...

regime (the pamphlet was launched at a press conference in London in 1962 by Irish writer and diplomat

Conor Cruise O'Brien Donal Conor David Dermot Donat Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 – 18 December 2008), often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic, who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 ...

, who contributed the Introduction), and ''The Collaborators'' (with Dorothy Robinson, 1964), revealing the intricacies of the financial politics of apartheid.

Publishing career

In 1966, her book ''The Press in Africa: Communications Past and Present'' was published by Gollancz in London and

Walker and Company Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

in New York. She also did freelance editing work for

Heinemann Heinemann may refer to: * Heinemann (surname) * Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company * Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States See also * Heineman * Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (born Se ...

African Writers Series The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann (publisher), Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003. The series has provided an int ...

, acknowledged by editorial director

James Currey James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topics� ...

as the "most important single person at this time" in the South African network. She began working for Ernest Hecht's Souvenir Press in 1975, and in 1981 moved to the

Women's Press The Women's Press was a feminist publishing company established in London in 1977. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, the Women's Press was a highly visible presence, publishing feminist literature. Founding In 1977, Stephanie Dowrick cofo ...

(co-founded in 1977 by writer and publisher

Stephanie Dowrick Stephanie Dowrick (born 2 June 1947) is an Australian writer, Interfaith Minister and social activist. She is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and non-fiction, five of them best-sellers. She was a publisher in Australia and the UK, wh ...

and entrepreneur Naim Attallah), where she was managing director and commissioning editor, publishing authors including

Rosalie Bertell Rosalie Bertell (April 4, 1929 – June 14, 2012) was an American scientist, author, environmental activist, epidemiologist, and Catholic nun. Bertell was a sister of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, best known for her work in the field of ioniz ...

, Alice Walker,

Ellen Kuzwayo Nnoseng Ellen Kate Kuzwayo (29 June 1914 – 19 April 2006) was a women's rights activist and politician in South Africa, and was a teacher from 1938 to 1952. She was president of the African National Congress Youth League in the 1960s. In 19 ...

Joan Riley Joan Riley (born 26 May 1958)Joan Riley overview
, Orlando. is a

, Caesarina Makhoere, Emma Mashanini,

Tsitsi Dangarembga Tsitsi Dangarembga (born 4 February 1959) is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker. Her debut novel, ''Nervous Conditions'' (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in ...

, Ama Ata Aidoo,

Merle Collins Merle Collins (born 29 September 1950 in Aruba)" ...

, Pauline Melville,

Farida Karodia Farida Karodia (born 1942) is a South African novelist and short-story writer. Biography Farida Karoida was born in the eastern Cape province, a location that inspired the setting for her first novel, ''Daughters of Twilight'' (1986). She taugh ...

, and many others. As

Helen Carr Helen Carr is a journalist and emeritus professor of English and comparative literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her book on the imagist movement was described by Ian Sansom in ''The Guardian'' as "the most comprehensive book on the ...

has observed: "The Women’s Press in Britain ... built up by Ros de Lanerolle, a South African who had earlier been much involved in opposition to apartheid, from the beginning had a policy of publishing work by black and what were then referred to as Third World writers." She was a founder member of the Feminist Book Fair and helped found the organisation

Women in Publishing A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

(WiP), campaigning to improve the position of women in the book trade. In 1992 she was awarded WiP's Pandora Prize for her contribution "to raising the status of women in publishing". De Lanerolle left the Women's Press in 1991 after a decade at the helm. She was already ill when in 1993 she made the second of two visits to South Africa since her name was removed from the banned list; she was planning new publishing ventures that would be compensatory and beneficial to Black Africans, and had launched her new company, Open Letters, with

Alison Hennegan Alison Hennegan is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Trinity Hall. She is also a prominent campaigner for gay and lesbian rights in the UK and a journalist. Hennegan's academic work focuses on le ...

and Gillian Hanscombe as co-directors. De Lanerolle was also a co-originator of the

Orange Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...

by women. At the time of her premature death from cancer in 1993, aged 61, she was "at the height of her career as a feminist publisher".

Personal life

In 1960, she married

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

-born Accha de Lanerolle, and they had two children: son Indra and daughter Ayisha.

Selected writings

* (with Ronald Segal and Catherine Hoskyns) ''Political Africa: A Who's Who of Personalities and Parties'' (Stevens & Sons, 1961) * ''The Unholy Alliance: Salazar, Verwoerd, Welensky''; Introduction by Conor O'Brien, Foreword by

Basil Davidson Basil Risbridger Davidson (9 November 1914 – 9 July 2010) was a British journalist and historian who wrote more than 30 books on African history and politics. According to two modern writers, "Davidson, a campaigning journalist whose fir ...

(London: Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1961) * ''The Collaborators'' (with Dorothy Robinson; Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1964) * ''The Press in Africa: Communications Past and Present'' (London: Gollancz; New York: Walker and Company, 1966) * ''Masters and Serfs: Farm Labour in South Africa'' ( International Defence & Aid Fund, 1973)

References

External links

"Forward to freedom – The history of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement 1959—1994"
contains a photograph (Sport: pic6403. Protesters at Wimbledon, 1964) captioned: ''"AAM supporters protest at a match played by a white South African tennis player at Wimbledon. On the right is Dorothy Robinson, Anti-Apartheid Movement Secretary in the early 1960s. Also in the photograph is AAM founder member Rosalynde Ainslie."'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanerolle, Ros de 1932 births 1993 deaths Anti-apartheid activists South African publishers (people) South African journalists Deaths from cancer in England Women in publishing South African activists South African women activists South African non-fiction writers People from Cape Town University of Cape Town alumni South African emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century journalists Women civil rights activists