Ebersohn, Wessel

South African author and magazine editor who was a stubborn opponent of apartheid and was thus harassed by the authorities for several years. Wessel Ebersohn was born in Cape Town, left school when he was only fifteen years old and trained to become a tele-technician. He got a job doing that in 1956, and in 1963 he married Miriam; the couple had three children and settled in Johannesburg. In 1979, he made his debut as an author, and his books angered the supporters of apartheid: they were censored, some were forbidden, and the family was harassed.