A LIFE'S MOSAIC, the autobiography of Phyllis Ntantala

238pp., paperback, Reprint, Johannesburg, (1992) 2009

Phyllis Ntantala was born in 1920 at Gqubeni in the Eastern Cape, and completed a  teachers’ diploma at the University of Fort Hare in 1937. Married to A.C. Jordan, who took up a position as senior lecturer in African Languages at the University of Cape Town in 1946, she was involved in the Cape African Teachers’ Association, while raising their children. In 1961 A.C. Jordan was awarded a Carnegie Travel Grant to visit universities and colleges in the USA. When he was denied a passport he chose to leave South Africa on an exit permit. His family followed him in 1962. A.C. Jordan was appointed Professor in African Languages and Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and later moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he died in 1968. Phyllis Ntantala died in Michigan in 2016, and is survived by their only remaining son, South African politician and former Cabinet Minister Zweledinga Pallo Jordan.