UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — South African author and journalist Zubeida Jaffer will deliver the Penn State Africana Research Center’s 2018 Nelson Mandela Lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium. The title of her talk is "In Hope of Peace, Not War."
In 1980, when Jaffer was 22 years old and working as a journalist in Cape Town, she received a message from Mandela. He urged her to keep writing, saying her stories in the morning paper were giving prisoners hope. Mandela also had become aware that Jaffer had been detained and tortured six months after she started her first job and was faced with considerable adversity. Jaffer met Mandela the day after his release from prison 10 years later, in 1990, and she met with him on several occasions over the years.
Jaffer will share parts of her life story to illustrate the challenges her country has faced and is facing to secure the greater peace sought by Mandela and many others.
Jaffer’s lecture is free and open to the public. For more information about the Nelson Mandela Lecture Series, visit http://arc.la.psu.edu/special-initiatives/annual-lecture-series/the-nelson-mandela-lecture-series.