Allister Sparks
| Allister Sparks | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
10 March 1933 Cathcart, Eastern Cape, South Africa |
| Died | 19 September 2016 (aged 83) Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Nationality | South African |
| Occupation | Journalist and editor |
| Years active | 1951–2016 |
| Employer | Rand Daily Mail |
| Known for | his editorship Rand Daily Mail during the 1970s |
| Home town | Johannesburg, South Africa |
Allister Haddon Sparks (10 March 1933 – 19 September 2016) was a South African writer, journalist, and political commentator. He was the editor of The Rand Daily Mail when it broke Muldergate, the story of how the apartheid government secretly funded information projects.
Allister Sparks began his journalism career at the Queenstown Daily Representative in 1951. In 1955, he reported for the Bulawayo Chronicle in Rhodesia. He worked as an editor under Donald Woods, who was editor-in-chief at the East London Daily Dispatch from 1956-1957. Afterwards, he worked for the Reuters news agency in Britain. He was a journalist for Rand Daily Mail and then a columnist in the 1960s. Sparks was later the editor of the Sunday Express. The highlight of his career was his editor position at the Rand Daily Mail. He worked for the Rand Daily Mail since 1967 as an editor and was let go when the board decided to target a white audience. He followed his position as an editor by working as a correspondent with top-level newspapers, including the Washington Post, The Observer (UK), and NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands.
In 1994, he wrote an extensive piece in The New Yorker, about Nelson Mandela.
In 1995, he researched and narrated the documentary series Death of Apartheid. He died in Johannesburg on 19 September 2016 due to a heart attack following an infection.
Sparks later wrote a number of critically acclaimed books on South Africa's transition from apartheid, including The Mind of South Africa (1991), Tomorrow is Another Country (1996), and more recently Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa (University of Chicago Press 2006). Sparks also wrote the book First Drafts (2008), as well as an Tutu: The Authorised Portrait of Desmond Tutu, with a Foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama written with Tutu's daughter, and published in 2011 for Tutu's 80th birthday.
...
Wikipedia