FORMER Pan Africanist Congress general secretary Ngila Muendane is the latest top literary personality to headline the popular open sessions of the Miriam Tlali Reading and Book Club, writes Victor Mecoamere

Muendane, who is also a former political prisoner, life coach and motivational speaker, will speak on his latest book, The Leader South Africa Never Had.

Everyone is invited to the venue, the African Literature Book Shop on 191 Louis Botha Avenue in Orange Grove, Johannesburg, on Saturday from 2pm.

Other presenters are Pride Mthethwa, who will handle storytelling for kiddies, and Previous Masuku will entertain teenagers in a poetry reading session.

Other personalities that have graced this legacy project of the South African Literary Awards, a highly respected nation-building partnership project of Sowetan, the Department of Arts and Culture, National Arts Council, wRite Associates and Nutrend Publishers, include Gomolemo Mokae, Achmat Dangor, MT Makobe, Lesego Motsepe, Motsoko Pheko, Gaby Magomola, Fanta Jabbie, Siphiwo Mahala, Ntsiki Mazwai and Marcia Tladi.

Back to Muendane and his book, which profiles the versatile unsung hero of South Africa's liberation struggle, Vusi Make, who is described as one of the most extraordinary men of our time, who reportedly single-handedly influenced the course of history in South Africa, and yet many people probably "never" heard of his remarkable feats.

And yet, Muendane remarks in the book, that Make gave 52 years of his 72 years of living to the struggle for liberation in South Africa, during which he notably led the most powerful bus boycott in South Africa, which was only equalled by the one led by US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and that the protest had also taken place on two different continents at the same time.

Muendane, says Make, was also the youngest accused in the Treason Trial of 1956.

Sowetan readers are invited to hear from Muendane about Make's other achievements, including that he was the first South African politician to meet Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, and influenced him to support the liberation struggle. He also lived with Ghana's founding president Kwame Nkrumah.

For more information, phone 011-791-3585, 011-791-4102 or e-mail: info@writeassociates.co.za. Also visit www.sowetanlive.co.za or www.sala.org.za