Jani Allan
Jani Allan (born September 11, 1952 ) is a South African columnist, writer and broadcaster. Allan studied at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg . She is one of the best known and most widely read columnists in the country.
In 1980 Allan became a columnist for the centrist Sunday Times, the country's largest weekly newspaper. For the next ten years she was the newspaper's most widely read columnist, publishing columns such as Just Jani, Jani Allan's Week, and Face to Face. In 1987, at the height of her fame, her newspaper commissioned a Gallup poll to find "the most admired person in South Africa". In 2015, Daily Maverick's Marianne Thamm described Allan as "the country's most influential writer and columnist".
She later became the subject of press interest over the nature of their relationship with an interview subject, Eugène Terre'Blanche . Allan firmly denied the allegations of the affair and issued an injunction against Terre'Blanche. Allan had to leave South Africa when her home was bombed by the right in 1989. After a brief stint in her newspaper's London office, she parted ways with the paper. She then pursued free writing opportunities and published a regular column for Scope. Allan filed an unsuccessful and widely publicized defamation lawsuit against Channel 4 in London in 1992 because of the allegations.
In 1996 she returned to South Africa, published a sponsored web column and presented a radio show on Cape Talk. After a long break, she returned to the South African media in 2013 and reinvented herself as a restaurant diary writer and animal rights activist. In 2014 she made headlines worldwide after posting an open letter to the accused murderer Oscar Pistorius . Jacana Media published Allan's memoir, Jani Confidential on March 16, 2015. Allan continues to write freelance opinion pieces for South African publications and has been a regular contributor to New York's Epoch Times since 2018 . Allan has lived in the United States since 2001 and is a permanent resident there.
Web links
- Official website
- The Return of Jani Allan
- Book review: Jani Allan, white South Africa's brittle fall girl - a cautionary tale
Individual evidence
- ↑ “I'm dying. The ultra-right Bure Terre Blanche and the liberal journalist Jani Allan - an impossible couple ” , in: Der Spiegel , August 7, 1989.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Allan, Jani |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African columnist and radio commentator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 11, 1952 |