Bookseller Profile

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Ike Mayet opened the doors of 'Ike's Bookshop' in Chapel Street, Durban, on the 8th day of the 8th month of 1988. In so doing, he became, without doubt, the first South African 'Africana and Antiquarian' book-dealer of colour. The new South Africa was yet to be born but the struggles that would make it a reality were to be found all around Durban, as they were in many other parts of South Africa.

Chapel Street is a small, back alley in Overport, Durban and at that time was an area designated in terms of the old Group Areas Act, as being reserved for South Africans of Indian origin. Yet by the late 1980's a rich mix of South Africans of all colours and classes lived around the bookstore. Small, old world dukawallah shops, wood and iron shacks, new post-modern homes, crumbling buildings, new high rise apartments, shebeens and brothels all competed for space and favour.

It was there that Ike set up shop, not more than 100 yards from his two-bedroomed flat at the age of 62. His life in many ways represents the trials and ironies of 20thC South Africa. His father had inherited what was then a small fortune. His grandfather, Ahmed "Paraffin" Mayet, accumulated his wealth from the sale of paraffin fuel to poor, mainly black South Africans. By 1926, when Ike was born, nothing was left of the family silver. In 1939 Ike contracted osteomyelitis. Penicillin was not readily available in South Africa at the time. He spent nearly three years at St Aidans hospital, and it was there that his love of books and of reading started and developed. In 1941, Indira Gandhi, a future Indian Prime Minister, and the daughter of Jawarahal Nehru, India's first post-independence Prime Minister, visited Durban on her way to England. She was taken by some progressive members of the then Natal Indian Congress to visit St Aidans Hospital. There, much to her surprise, she found a youngster reading Homer. That young man was Joseph David (Ike) Mayet.

In 1948 the Nationalist Party won an election victory and started to put in place the strategy of Grand Apartheid, imposing a rigid racial classification that would henceforth determine all aspects of life for every South African, black or white. Ike was faced with a choice, one he made easily in the end. In appearance, Ike could have easily passed as white. Ike's maternal grandparents, an Irish-Scottish alliance - came from St Helena, an island made famous by Napoleon's incarceration in the 19th century. Ike's paternal grandfather was Ahmed Mayet, a native of Kathor in the Surat District of western Indian. The villages in this district were a prime source of the flows of Indian trading and merchant families that came to Natal from about 1872. Ahmed married Katrinka Barger, one of four wives, who had come to South Africa as a child with her parents, Lutheran missionary workers of Dutch and German descent.

Ike and most of his family could have successfully applied to be classified white, a wise choice given the privileges this would have brought in apartheid South Africa. But they insisted on retaining their Indian/black identity and went through the next 40 years, on the 'wrong' side of the racial tracks, suffering all the pain and indignity that apartheid could throw at black people at the time. Despite training generations of younger white men in the engineering trade that he entered in the mid-1940s, he was never able to make the kind of progress that most, often less-capable, whites were able to and many shot passed him on the occupational hierarchy.

When finally he retired from formal work in 1981, in part by the complications caused by his earlier battle with osteomyelitis, Ike decided to try his hand at book-binding. In this venture he had the the support and encouragement of Durban's grand old man of books - Adams Bookshop's Mr Ernest Rabjohn. In the mid-1980s, Ike undertook the major task of restoring a vast quantity of rare books in the Gandhi Library, 140 Queen Street, in the heart of the "Indian quarter" of Durban, where Mahatma Gandhi plied his trade as lawyer and activist 100 years earlier. There Ike honed his skills as a binder, and rapidly moved from simple binding work to careful restoration and preservation work.

It is that fighting, indomitable spirit, that steely determination, that principled, uncompromising stand against the brutality of the apartheid system, but also that adventurous life-style and incredible sense of humour, and that fount of historical information and urban trivia that informed the establishment and character of Ike's Bookshop. It is that tradition that the relaunched Ike's Books and Collectables, intends to build on and extend in new and exciting ways in the new South Africa in a new millenium.

Ike's Books and Collectables is now owned by two Professors of Economics at the University of Natal, Durban - Vishnu Padayachee and Julian May. It is brilliantly and efficiently managed and run by Joanne Rushby. Shannon Moffat works for the shop on a part-time basis, while Ike Mayet continues to visit the shop to meet his old friends and does binding and restoration work both for the shop and for his own account. Carey-Anne May is the artistic and creative force behind the venture.

Bookselling is not the easiest way to make a living. What keeps you doing it?
In 2000, when Ike decided to close the bookstore, Vishnu and Julian felt that it would be a shame for Durban to lose one of its most treasured possessions, and wanted to keep the tradition of bookselling alive. Both Vishnu and Julian hold positions at the University of Natal, and so combine their love of books with full-time jobs. Bookselling is not an easy business but there's no money in academic life either. As Julian often suggests, bookselling is an elegant way to lose money!

How did you get started in bookselling?
Ike's Books began in 1988 under the proprietorship of Ike Mayet, the first South African book-dealer of colour. The story of the bookstore to date is encapsulated in the article to the right, entitled "An Unsung Hero of the South African Book Trade". In 1990, the bookstore was bought and re-launched by Professors Vishnu Padayachee and Julian May, and is now run and managed by Joanne Rushby.

What is your specialty? How did you choose it?
We specialise in Africana, with a particular focus on Natal and Zululand. Our other areas of interest are apartheid history, fine bindings and antiquarian books. We chose Africana as it is an area of interest to many people in South Africa, and there are only a few bookstores which cover this particular subject.

Do you collect anything besides books?

Durban represents a meeting point at which African, Asian and English values, traditions, cultures and people come together. Rather than simply focusing on books, we have tried to bring these various aspects into the bookstore in the form of photographs, crafts, paintings and other assorted collectables to symbolise the different cultures which make Durban such a vibrant and interesting city.

Do you have any legendary stories you tell about incidents in your store or as a bookseller?

Some of the most unusual customers are those who do not buy books for their content, but for their covers, in order to fit in with the décor.

What are your favourite books, or your recommendations? What books have you read more than once?

We purchased a book recently called the Gardens of Kama, a collection of Indian Love poems with beautiful illustrations, written in 1919. The poetry is extremely dramatic, and the accompanying pictures (illustrated by Byam Shaw) mirror the passion of the lyrics.

Gardens of Kama, illustrated by Byam Shaw

The views of the author, expressed above, are not necessarily those of the Advanced Book Exchange