My mother, Katherine El-Salahi, who has died aged 80, was a publisher, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist who championed independent publishing in the global south.
In her 20s she joined the London Recruits, a network of young white activists undertaking covert missions against the apartheid regime. Posing as a wealthy honeymooner, she smuggled weapons to the armed wing of the African National Congress – an operation she concealed until the publication of the 2012 book London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid. When I later interviewed her for This American Life, she explained, with characteristic humility, that her reluctance to speak stemmed from an awareness that others “had done a hell of a lot more”.
