SIMON’S DESTINY

Convincing story told with plenty of wry humour. (Review by Michael Green)

David Bloomberg is a versatile man: a former mayor of Cape Town, a lawyer, business man and one-time theatre director. He has also, in retirement, become a writer: author of a book of memoirs, a history of the mayors of Cape Town and now, with this book, a topical novelist.

Born and bred in Cape Town, he now lives in Switzerland but is a regular visitor to South Africa and has obviously kept himself well informed about the political and social developments of recent years.

Simon’s Destiny is a story about a Cape Town man, Simon Kantor, who runs a successful family fishing business. He is conventional, respected, decent, rather limited in his perspectives about his country. His experience is mainly restricted to his city, his family, his work, his friends in and out of the Jewish community, and the Coloured fishermen who work for him. He has no reason to feel apologetic about his role.

The arrival of the new government in 1994 changes all that. For the first time Simon encounters sophisticated black people and, in particular, a canny and well-educated entrepreneur with political connections. He has to change his habitual attitudes in many ways and he does so, recognising that this is the route to business survival. He survives an attempted assassination and in the end he becomes an honoured member of the new society.

David Bloomberg tells this story convincingly and with plenty of wry humour. The writing is fluent and the detail is interesting and apparently accurate, even when it touches on such esoteric matters as fishing licences, the breeding grounds of lobsters, and the stately homes of Cape Town. It is quite a long book, 305 pages, but it is a good read from start to finish.

Simon’s Destiny, by David Bloomberg is published by Ampersand Press, retailing at R199. ISBN 978-1-919760-82-7 - Michael Green