Jacobson, Dan
Entry updated 23 December 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1929-2014) South African academic and author, in the UK and the USA from the early 1950s. Moral fervour and a harsh eloquence about his homeland characterize novels like The Trap (1955), his first novel, which long precedes the end of white supremacy in South Africa. Of his many subsequent novels, some are of interest for their explorations in the realms of Fantastika. The Wonder-Worker (1973) intricately transforms its narrator, who is capable of supernatural empathy with the sentient and non-sentient world (see Psi Powers), into a kind of Secret Master (see Godgame) of that world. The Confessions of Joseph Baisz (1977) is set in a tyrannical, unnamed, South-Africa-like Dystopia; Her Story (1987) is an examination in sf and feminist terms of a desolate Post-Holocaust environment; The God-Fearer (1992) is an Alternate History whose Jonbar Point – the Jews do not revolt against Rome in 70 CE – results in a Europe where Christianity is a minority sect. [JC]
Dan Jacobson
born Johannesburg, South Africa: 7 March 1929
died London: 12 June 2014
works
- The Rape of Tamar (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970) [hb/]
- The Wonder-Worker (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) [hb/Tom Simmonds]
- The Confessions of Joseph Baisz (London: Secker and Warburg, 1977) [hb/]
- Her Story (London: André Deutsch, 1987) [hb/from Botticelli]
- The God-Fearer (London: Bloomsbury, 1992) [hb/Jeff Fisher]
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