In view of South African journalist Ruth Weiss’s 90th birthday in 2014, BAB’ s archivists invited her in 2013 to a public conversation in the series “Archivgespräche” – “Archive talk”. In this podcast episode, conducted in both German and English, we provide an extract from the live-recorded conversation held in Basel. It includes introductions to Ruth Weiss’s collections by the archivists Dag Henrichsen and Susanne Hubler Baier, followed by historical interview snippets from her impressive tape collection and her reflections.
The conversation took place as part of the preparations for the BAB exhibition “’My very first question to you’. An acoustic portrait of the journalist Ruth Weiss and southern African liberation politics”, shown between 2014 and 2917 in Basel, Cape Town, Lusaka, and Bayreuth. The exhibition went along with the publication of her autobiography “A Path through Hard Grass. A Journalist’s Memories of Exile and Apartheid” (BAB 2014), with a foreword by South African writer Nadine Gordimer, Ruth Weiss’s lifelong friend about whom she also talks in the conversation. The recording also features snippets from interviews with the Anglican bishop Trevor Huddleston and ANC’s president Oliver Tambo.
This podcast episode is a fitting format to congratulate Ruth Weiss on her 100th birthday in 2024.