“Then, it was a big disgrace – skandaal! – for a young girl to get herself pregnant outside of marriage. I was already a very focal point of community gossip: I was doing something no Malay girl had ever done before me […] I was a reporter on a ‘naytiff’ paper, and I was seen all over the place in the company of ‘naytiffs’ – eating with them, walking and talking with them, partying with them and jislaai! coming home with them in open-top Cadillacs!”

The late, great Juby Mayet passed away in April 2019 at the age of 82. The New Age. Drum, Golden City Post, Voice – some of the greatest publications of an era – were elevated by Juby’s voice. Her hepcat, jazz-inflected writing is thrilling, and all the more so in this, her memoir. Mayet was a writer and a fighter, for whom media freedom was sacred, and being a writer was the greatest thing a person could do.

Susanne M. Klausen’s afterword is an essential and elegant contribution to Juby’s life and times, and an urgent call for Juby Mayet to receive the recognition she so deserves.