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Jeffrey Brian Peires

ジェフリー・ブライアン・ペイレス

Jefurī Burain Peiresu

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
Cape Town
Nationality
South Africa
Languages
English
Religion
Judaism
Residence History
Cape Town → Eastern Cape → Grahamstown

Career

Occupations
historian, politician, civil servant
Active Years
1972-2022
Affiliations
University of Fort Hare, Rhodes University

Education

University of Cape Town
History
Period: 1972頃
Country: South Africa
University of Wisconsin–Madison
History
Period: 1972-1975
Country: United States

Awards

Alan Paton Award
1990
Work: The Dead Will Arise
Category: non-fiction
Organization: Sunday Times
Result: winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing of 1856–7

1989 History

A monograph on the Xhosa cattle-killing movement of 1856–57, emphasizing the role of Nongqawuse's prophecies over materialist explanations.

Xhosa cattle-killingmillenarianismcolonial historyXhosa historiography
Adaptations
  • [novel] The Heart of Redness / Zakes Mda (2000)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
critical historiographyuse of Xhosa sources

Legacy

Renowned South African historian of Xhosa history, particularly the cattle-killing movement, inaugurating a more critical historiographical phase.

In Popular Culture

  • Provided textual basis for Zakes Mda's novel The Heart of Redness.

Quotes

  • 'It was Peires's rendition of that story that inspired my fiction rather than the historical events themselves, and I had to make that obvious in my fiction by deliberately using Peires's phraseology as an intertextual device.'
    Source: Mail & Guardian (2008)

Trivia

  • Jewish. His mother Juliete Peires is a published Holocaust historian.
  • Elected to the National Assembly for the African National Congress in the 1994 post-apartheid election but resigned before term end.