Benjamin Pogrund

Who is Benjamin Pogrund?

Benjamin Pogrund is a South African-born author currently living in Israel.

Brought up in Cape Town, he began a career as a journalist in 1958, writing for the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, where he eventually became deputy-editor. The Rand Daily Mail was the only newspaper in South Africa at that time to report on events in black South Africa townships. In the course of his work he came to know the major players in the Apartheid struggle and gained the respect and confidence of leaders such as Nelson Mandela. Pogrund was a reporter at the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. He was author of a 1965 series on beating and torture of black inmates and maltreatment of white political priosners. During his career reporting on Apartheid in South Africa he was put on trial several times, put in prison once, had his passport revoked and was investigated as a threat to the state by security police".

When the Rand Daily Mail ceased publication in 1985, Pogrund left for London in 1986. There he was chief foreign sub-editor of The Independent, London. Later he was editor of The WorldPaper in Boston, and reported from South Africa in The Sunday Times. He has authored books on Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela and the South African press under apartheid.