Harry Bloom - Biography

Harry Saul Bloom (1 January 1913—28 July 1981) was a Jewish South African journalist, novelist, and political activist. Born Solomon Harris Bloom, he was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand and subsequently became an advocate in Johannesburg. He married Beryl Gordon in 1940 and worked as a war correspondent in England during the Second World War.

Bloom's first novel, Episode (1956), was later retitled Transvaal Episode. This book, an account of an uprising in the fictional township of Nelstroom in the aftermath of the 1952–53 African National Congress defiance campaign, was banned by the South African government for being dangerous to the safety of the apartheid state. The novel won the British Authors' Club Prize for the best novel of 1956, but Bloom was denied an exit permit to travel to England to receive the prize. The book was dedicated to four people: his wife Beryl, who provided editorial assistance and typed the manuscript; Bram Fischer, Bloom's close friend who defended Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial; Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, and Guy Routh. Bloom worked with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in the 1950s. During the state of emergency that followed the Sharpville massacre in 1960, he was detained for ninety days without charges or trial—first at Roeland Street Prison and later at Worcester Prison near Cape Town.

Bloom wrote his second novel, Whittaker's Wife (1962) while serving a three-month detention in prison for his political activities. He also wrote the play for the musical King Kong: An African Jazz Opera (1961), a tragedy of a black boxer from the ghetto, that reached a multiracial audience both locally and internationally.

In 1963 Bloom went into exile in England. He left behind his wife, Beryl, and two children, Susan Storm Bloom (photographer and jewellery designer www.susanstorm.com) and Stephen Bloom (photographer Steve Bloom). In 1967, he became lecturer in law at the University of Kent, where he taught until 1974. He then married a second time, to Sonia Copeland, Harry Bloom died of a stroke in 1981 at the age of 68. Beryl continued to live in Cape Town and died in Victoria Court, on 28 Sept 2009, aged 88.