Norma Kitson

Norma Cranko Kitson (18 August 1933 – 12 June 2002) was a South African political activist. She participated in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.[1]

Early life

Norma Belle Cranko was born in Berea, Durban, in a wealthy Jewish family.[2] Her father was a chemist; her mother Millie Stiller Cranko was an immigrant from Poland.[3] Ballet dancer John Cranko was her cousin.[4]

Career

At 14 she went to work as a secretary. She joined the South African Communist Party in the 1950s, and became a printer for the cause. After her husband was jailed in 1964, she left South Africa with her children and settled in London,[5] where she set up a women's cooperative press in Gray's Inn Road. She was often to be found protesting apartheid in Trafalgar Square, in front of South Africa House,[6] as part of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group, which she founded.[4]

After the end of apartheid, the Kitsons were recognized by the African National Congress as veterans of the cause. She was secretary of a Zimbabwe women writers' group late in her life, and wrote a creative writing textbook during that time.[7]

Personal life

Norma Cranko married a World War II veteran, mechanical engineer David Kitson. They had two children, Stephen and Amandla; they divorced while Dave was serving a long prison sentence. She remarried in 1973, to choreographer Sidney Cherfas, and divorced again; then remarried her first husband after his freedom in 1984.[8] In 1986, she published an autobiography, Where Sixpence Lives.[9]

She moved to Harare, Zimbabwe after 1994. Norma Kitson died from emphysema in 2002, aged 68 years.[4]

In 2011 she was honored by the Republic of Sierra Leone by a postage stamp issued for her in their series “Legendary Heroes of Africa”.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Norma Kitson - Obituaries". The Independent. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
  2. ↑ John D. Battersby, "A Hunger for Justice" New York Times (22 November 1987).
  3. ↑ "Norma Kitson" South African History Online (2011).
  4. 1 2 3 Denis Herbstein, "Norma Kitson" The Guardian (12 July 2002).
  5. ↑ Adam Yamey, Exodus to Africa (Lulu.com 2015): 235. ISBN 9781326302429
  6. ↑ Padraig O'Malley, interview with Paul Trewhela (13 June 2004), Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.
  7. ↑ Richard Cumyn, "An Interview with Norma Kitson" Blue Moon Review (1997).
  8. ↑ Denis Herbstein, "David Kitson Obituary" The Guardian (17 January 2011).
  9. ↑ Norma Kitson, Where Sixpence Lives (Random House UK 1986). ISBN 9780701207724
  10. ↑ "12 Jews Honored on African Stamps as Apartheid Fighters" Jerusalem Post (3 January 2011).
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