Daddy Isn't Coming Back

In her tell-all book, Lindiwe Hani reveals more about what she’s faced since the death of her father, Chris Hani.

- Gabisile Ngcobo

THE picture was published on the front pages of news papers around the world: Chris Hani face down in the driveway of his Boksburg home, blood from his head wounds seeping onto the bricks.

The man many believed would help lead South Africa into a free future was dead – and the SA Communist Party (SACP) leader’s murder took the country to the brink of civil war.

Yet, as the fallout raged, a family was falling apart. The extent of the devastation wrought on Hani’s wife and three daughters is now being bared in black and white by his youngest child, Lindiwe. In her newly released memoir, Being Chris Hani’s Daughter, she reveals the demons that hounded her since the shooting. Then just 12 years old, Lindiwe battled to come to terms with his violent death and the emotional effect it had on her, her sisters and their mom.

The seed for the book was planted when journalist Melinda Ferguson, who co-authored the book, interviewed Lindiwe for a magazine article in 2013. But she was still a “closet drug addict” at the time and not ready to expose her life just yet.

“I knew there was no way in hell I could do it then,” Lindi tells us over a latté at a coffee shop in Milpark, Johannesburg. “I thought if I write it now and leave out that part, there are people who will say, ‘Girl, we saw you fall down in Melville [Johannesburg]. Why’s that not in the book?’”

But two-and-a-half years later, after clawing her way out of her addiction to booze and drugs, she eventually put pen to paper – and the result is a brutally honest account of her downward spiral.

Now a 37-year-old mother of one, she talks about the major losses in her life: her father’s death, the abortion she had at 18, and burying her boyfriend and her sister. She’s also candid about meeting her dad’s killers, as well as her battle with addiction.