Dear Ahmedbhai, Dear Zuleikhabehn: Compiled by Goolam Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen

DEAR AHMEDBHAI, DEAR ZULEIKHABEHN,
is a collection of letters that chronicles the development of a friendship between a political prisoner and a self-described housewife during the tumultuous last decade of apartheid. The correspondence between Ahmed Kathrada, convicted of treason and serving out a life sentence on Robben Island, and Zuleikha Mayat begins accidentally when Kathrada writes to his former Johannesburg flatmate, Abdulhak ‘Bis’ Bismillah. It is a letter of condolence following a road crash that claimed the lives of Bismillah’s sister, Sakina Bibi Mall, and brother-in-law, Dr. Mohamed Mayat. What happens to Bis’s own reply is unclear, but in the meantime, his widowed sister responds. A freelance writer, community organizer, and editor of the best-selling cookbook Indian Delights, Mayat initiates a conversation with Kathrada that endures until his release ten years later. Compiled by Goolam Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen, who both teach history at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.