‘JANE RAPHAELY unedited’ is FunDza’s latest ‘Big Read’. FunDza is delighted to host Jane Raphaely’s memoir – JANE RAPHAELY unedited – on the FunDza Mxit. Read all about the woman who turned down $24 000 in a quiz show with a cowboy to follow her heart to South Africa, who worked with Charlize Theron to tell the world that ‘Real Men Don’t Rape’ and who pioneered the publishing of women’s magazines in South Africa at a time when women’s voices and concerns were largely overlooked in the media.
Jane’s passion and integrity shine through in this frank and funny memoir that describes her personal and professional journey, and what she learned on the way.
The impetus for the book, as she describes in the prologue, came from birthday wishes from Nelson Mandela when she turned 70, wishing that she ‘continued to be an inspiration to young women in Southern Africa’. One way of doing this, she thought, was to write her story.
She writes: “During the years of his [Mandela’s] imprisonment on Robben Island I had been busy birthing babies and magazines, sometimes at exactly the same time. Those magazines had been banned repeatedly, sued by angry paedophiles, threatened by thugs from the South African Defence Force, and used by prisoners on the island to create a secret means of communication. But the best thing they had done was to give women in South Africa a significant soapbox with a huge sound system that allowed even the softest voice to reverberate as a very loud shout.”
Like us, Jane Raphaely is passionate about reading, and so it is fitting that her book appears on Mxit where it can be read by young South Africans who otherwise would not have access to it.
As she writes, “access to books and being able to read them are the greatest advantages for any striving child. Nothing beats a great teacher, but a good book is better than a poor teacher. Nor does it have to be non-fiction: fiction can teach you more about human nature than any counsellor; and anything that increases your store of words is worth absorbing.”
We are sure our readers will enjoy this ‘good book’ that she has provided. Thank you, Jane, for giving them this opportunity.
To read it on Mxit, download the Mxit app and add ‘FunDza’ as a contact or follow this path: Tradepost > Reach > mobiBooks > FunDza
Chapters cost 300 moola or R3.