LOST CITY OF THE KALAHARI
By Alan Paton
Fifty years ago, Alan Paton, by then the highly acclaimed author of Cry, the beloved country, and the National Chairman of the South African Liberal Party, joined a crazy adventure into the Kalahari Desert, to locate the mythical lost city of the Kalahari. He and six other amateur adventurers set off in a decrepit truck named the ‘Kalahari Polka’, headed towards the Aha Mountains. Paton’s role in the expedition was ‘scribe and bottlewasher’ and he kept a diary throughout the journey. When he returned home, he wrote an article on the expedition for Life magazine, as the magazine’s photographer had accompanied the expedition. However, the article was never published, and was left with Paton’s papers, which in 1989 were moved to the Alan Paton Centre, where they were documented, but left to lie quietly in a box in the stackroom.
When Herman Wittenberg, of the University of the Western Cape, visited the APC to do research for his PhD, he asked to see the manuscript. He was fascinated, and saw the possibility of a publication. He went on to edit the manuscript, of which he found another version written by Paton, with an expedition member’s widow, located photographs and the old home movie made by Harold Pole on the expedition, wrote an introduction, and the book was published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press at the end of 2005.
The book was launched at several venues throughout the country, including Exclusive Books at the Liberty Mall, Pietermaritzburg, on 9 November 2005. On the next day, Hermann Wittenberg gave a lecture and presentation on the discovery, development and significance of the manuscript. This was organized by the Alan Paton Centre, and held on the Pietermaritzburg Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.