Richard Rive

Richard Moore Rive was born on March 1, 1931, in the legendary multiracial working-class neighbourhood of District Six, Cape Town. Educated at the University of Cape Town and Columbia University, he completed his doctorate in English literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1974.

Rive was an essential voice of anti-apartheid resistance. His 1964 novel Emergency depicted the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre. His crowning literary triumph, Buckingham Palace, District Six (1986), painted an indelible, compassionate, and humorous portrait of the people of District Six before their forced removal and destruction by the apartheid state. He served as head of English at Hewat Training College until his tragic murder in 1989.