PASSINGS: Fatima Meer
Fatima Meer
Mandela biographer
Fatima Meer, 81, a friend and biographer of former South African President Nelson Mandela, died Friday at a hospital in Durban, a local politician and family friend, Logie Naidoo, told the South African Press Assn. The cause of death was not given.
Achmat Dangor, chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said in a statement that Meer had “been a close friend of Mr. Mandela and his family for more than 60 years and was an academic and a stalwart of the struggle against apartheid.”
“Higher Than Hope,” Meer’s biography of Mandela published in the United States in 1990, told of Mandela’s years in prison. The biography included letters he sent to family and friends.
Meer, born in 1928, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Natal, where she was a professor of sociology.
-- times staff and wire reports
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