Millin, Sarah (1888–1968)

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Millin, Sarah (1888–1968)

Jewish South African writer. Born Sarah Gertrude Liebson on March 3, 1888, in Zagar, Lithuania; died on July 6, 1968; daughter of Isaiah Liebson (a businessman)and Olga (Friedmann) Liebson; completed high school, 1904; earned music teacher's certificate, 1906; married Philip Millin, on December 1, 1912 (died 1952).

Awards:

honorary doctorate, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (March 1952).

Family emigrated to South Africa (August 1888); began publishing in magazines (after 1906); began her first novel (1916); began correspondence with Katherine Mansfield (1920); published bestseller God's Stepchildren (1924); founded the South Africa PEN writer's club on the recommendation of John Galsworthy (1928); began biography of Jan Smuts (1932); played host to Chaim andVera Weizmann (1933); became Jan Smuts' confidante during WWII; campaigned for Ian Smith's government in Zimbabwe (1965).

Selected writings:

Adams Rest (London: Collins, 1922); An Artist in the Family (London: Constable, 1928); The Burning Man (London: Heinemann, 1952); Cecil Rhodes (NY: Harper, 1933); The Coming of the Lord (NY: Liveright, 1928); The Dark Gods (NY: Harper, 1941); The Dark River (London: Collins, 1919); The Fiddler (London: Constable, 1929); General Smuts (London: Faber and Faber, 1936); God's Stepchildren (London: Constable, 1924); Goodbye, Dear England (London: Heinemann, 1965); The Jordans (London: Collins, 1923); King of the Bastards (NY: Harper, 1949); Mary Glenn (London: Constable, 1925); The Measure of My Days (NY: Abelard-Schuman, 1955); Men on a Voyage (London: Constable, 1930); Middle-Class (London: Collins, 1921); The Night is Long (London: Faber and Faber, 1941); The People of South Africa (London: Constable, 1951); The Sons of Mrs. Aab (London: Chatto & Windus, 1931); South Africa (London: Collins, 1941); The South Africans (London: Constable, 1926); Three Men Die (NY: Harper, 1934); Two Bucks Without Hair (Central News Agency: Johannesburg, 1957); War Diary (Vol. 1: World Blackout, 1944, Vol. 2: The Reeling Earth, 1945, Vol. 3: The Pit of the Abyss, 1946, Vol. 4: The Sound of the Trumpet, 1947, Vol. 5: Fire out of Heaven, 1947, Vol. 6: The Seven Thunders, 1948, London: Faber and Faber 1944–1948); What Hath a Man? (Chatto & Windus: London, 1938); (contributing editor) White Africans Are Also People (Cape Town: Timmins, 1966); The Wizard Bird (Central News Agency: Johannesburg, 1962).

From the beginning, Sarah Gertrude Millin was eager for influence and to her credit, at the height of her career, she had achieved that and considerable fame as well. Beginning with novels, her writing developed into social history even as she became increasingly interested in politics. The success of her books gained Millin entrée to high society in England and America. In addition, her friendships with the prominent South African settlers Jan Smuts and J.H. Hofmeyr gave her an inside view into the critical historical moments of her day.

Sarah Millin was born Sarah Gertrude Liebson, the daughter of Isaiah Liebson, a businessman, and Olga Friedmann Liebson , in Zagar, Lithuania, on March 3, 1888; the Millins moved to South Africa that same August. Sarah decided that she would be a writer when she was six years old. When she was eight, her parents sent her away to school, determined that their children would receive a better education than that available at the mining settlement of Waldeck's Plant where they lived. After finishing high school, Millin refused to go to college, despite having graduated with first-class honors. Instead, she returned home to her parents and began writing short stories and essays. Soon her work was appearing in local magazines and newspapers. Over the next 50 years, she went on to publish more than 30 books and countless essays and columns.

Her attitudes reflected the views of the settler population of South Africa. She disliked Africans and was obsessed with race and blood purity; these themes appeared again and again in her novels. Although she was never able to admit to the connection between anti-Semitism and her own racism, others were, and her bestseller God's Stepchildren was used by the Nazis as part of their pro-Aryan propaganda. Horrified, Millin, who was herself Jewish and a supporter of Zionism, used her influence to lobby against both appeasement of Hitler by England and growing anti-Semitism in South Africa.

Just before the beginning of World War II, Smuts was appointed prime minister. By then, Millin had developed a close relationship with him while writing his biography, and Smuts now invited her to record the war as his confidante. Despite her success as a novelist, Millin felt that fiction was ill-suited to the gravity of the times. She welcomed this chance to continue her political writing.

Millin had married a lawyer, Philip Millin, when she was 24; her glamorous career as a writer was matched by his accomplishments on the South African bench. They were devoted to each other, and his restrained nature helped temper her extreme tendencies. In 1952, overcome by poor health and overwork, Philip Millin died of a heart attack. A devastated Sarah went into prolonged mourning. When she returned to society three years later, she found her standing greatly diminished. Smuts and Hofmeyr had died in the years after the war, taking with them her access to political intrigues. On the streets, opposition to apartheid was growing and the independence movements throughout the continent made it clear that the days of white supremacy were coming to an end. In settler mythology, however, the circling of the wagons to protect the community from perceived danger has a strong hold on the imagination. Millin's anti-African sentiments only became more extreme.

As before, she was unable to keep her prejudice out of her writing. The literary community was appalled and distanced itself from her. Without the moderating influence of her husband, she became increasingly eccentric and antisocial. She spent the last few years of her life campaigning for the settler government of pre-independence Zimbabwe. At the beginning of July 1968, she fell sick and was hospitalized. On July 6, she suffered a thrombosis and died, alone. Wrote Nadine Gordimer : "Her egotism cast a kind of spell of isolation around her, in that house, in the end I suppose. And yet she had such a big mind—one of the few real intellects in this country."