Jani Allan resurfaces with Letter to Oscar

Hi there,

In the mid-1980s, I was a young man in a hurry. Addicted to ambition, hard work had landed me a senior position at the Sunday Times, which in those days was the biggest name in media. In among all those household names, columnist Jani Allan was like a Goddess. She always seemed terribly out of place in the smoky, messy offices at the bottom end of Mooi Street – a slim, silent, mysterious creature with an acute fashion sense that heightened the way she contrasted with her frumpy fellow workers.

Then, at the height of her fame, this unapproachable, aloof ice-maiden with an acid-dripping pen got too close to the racist’s racist, AWB Leader Eugene Terre’Blanche. In the aftermath of allegations about an affair Jani always denied, she survived an assassination attempt when her Johannesburg apartment was bombed. She left South Africa for London and Sundays were never quite the same again.

Jani Allan resurfaced yesterday with a quite extraordinary piece about Terre’Blanche and another infamous South African, the man accused of having murdered Reeva Steenkamp. She says ET and OP have a great deal in common. A fascinating read, it’s the headliner on Biznews.com.

Best,

Alec