TALES OF LIFE, LOVE AND LOSS, a memoir

183pp., illus., paperback, Staging Post, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781067266141

"Hillary ... understands intuitively that the best memoirs focus not on their authors, but rather on the people they've encountered ... Her stories include a charming account of an invitation to tea with Nelson Mandela, his wife Graça Machel and his old friend and lawyer George Bizos; her surprisingly warm encounter with famed heart transplant surgeon Christiaan Barnard; her struggles with and affection for her unhappy parents; her complex and unsettling first marriage to Denis and her warm and gratifying partnership with second husband Tony; and her intimate friendships with political prisoner David Goldberg, poet Lionel Abrahams and theatrical producer Barney Simons." Glenn Frankel, author of Rivonia's Children, three families and the cost of conscience in white South Africa

Hillary Hamburger was born in 1936 and has lived in Johannesburg all her life, except for a year spent in London. A teacher by training, she started her career at the Central Indian High School, and later worked as a secretary for the Defence and Aid Fund, organising defences for political prisoners. She qualified as a clinical psychologist and established a private practice with her second husband, Tony Hamburger.  In 1999, they co-founded Ububele in Alexandra township, an educational and psychotherapy trust aimed at supporting and improving the emotional development of young children.