Rosa Lyster goes on a wild goose chase for the real author of banned 1963 novel An Act of Immorality

IN 1963 the apartheid state tried to take control of South African literature with the introduction of the Publications and Entertainments Act, which ushered in one of the most comprehensive censorship systems in the world. The first South African novel to be banned under the legislation was titled An Act of Immorality.It was published by Trans-World in 1963 and written under a pseudonym: Des Troye. The jacket advertised it as "A startling expose of sex across the colour line," featuring a lawyer who "prosecutes offenders of the Immorality Act by day" and "by night, under neurotic compulsion ... breaks the Immorality Act".The author is described as "a Johannesburg attorney who holds a degree in psychology ... He writes under the pen-name 'Des Troye' to avoid victimisation and publicity".An Act of Immorality sold 40,000 copies on publication, breaking previous records on South African sales by 25,000 units. In late 1963, a US film crew entered South Africa illegally through Swaziland to make a film of the book, drawing the attention of the Security Branch.Further scrutiny followed about six months later, when An Act of Immorality was submitted to the censorship board by the police commissioner and was quickly banned. Censors' reports describe it as "an attack on the National Party" and on apartheid.Documents attached to the report reveal that the offices of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, and the National Commissioner of Police were engaged in a joint effort to unmask Des Troye, who they had identified only as a white Johannesburg-based lawyer, who might be working at the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court.It is unclear, in these memos, whether this information has been gathered from analysis of the novel itself, or from other sources of intelligence. What is clear is that they badly wanted to find out who he was. The novel is now long out of print. In wider discussions of literary censorship, it is mentioned only in passing, and only the pseudonym is provided. The author's identity is still, apparently, a secret. No one I have ever spoken to has any idea who he is.That's the first half of the story. The second half begins with an observation: An Act of Immorality is a very bad book. It starts with the sentence, "It was afternoon, a warm, sensual afternoon," and it is all downhill from there. Open the book at any page, and you will find something to cringe at. The tone moves awkwardly between laboured raunchiness and long stretches in which characters have impossibly unlikely conversations about psychology. It is very, very bad.It is also a horrible book. It continually expresses views which are repellent, while also presenting its protagonist as an exemplar of liberal humanity. On the one hand, it inveighs against the Immorality Act, calling it "an act of death", and provides countless scenes of the damage the act wrought.On the other, it contains many sentences like these: "[E]ven the most illiterate non-white in the gallery could see that Johannes was a man of conviction," or, "Her voice, poise and attire were extremely sophisticated for a black woman."The protagonist's desire for black women is described as a "neurotic compulsion", and it is intimated that both his parents were driven to suicide by a similar "pathological" desire.White people's desire for black people is depicted as the product of a troubled mind, and the root cause of the suicide of at least four white people in the novel.The novel was banned on the grounds that it was "a slashing attack on the Immorality Act and apartheid", but it could almost have been used as state propaganda.Reading An Act of Immorality made me understand why the author had been so coy about his identity. I went back to the censor's report hoping to find some clue about who he was. I found it: a memo affixed to a file I had looked at probably 20 times before, and yet failed to see.The note says, "The Sunday Express of September 29 contains a report to the effect that an American film company is secretly filming the novel ... According to the Press report, the author is Mr Simon Meyerson."Ordering the microfilms from the National Library, I expected to find a small piece somewhere towards the back of the paper. It was on the front page. A screaming headline: "SEX BOOK IS FILMED SECRETLY ON RAND".The article notes that the identity of the author has "remained a well-kept secret". It goes on to say: "I am now able to disclose that the author is Mr Simon Meyerson, a 27-year-old student at the University of the Witwatersrand." The secret of Des Troye's identity is that it was never a secret at all. But who was Meyerson?An interview with Meyerson in the paper at the time makes for revealing reading. He insists that the book is not "political" but is an interrogation of "the underlying psychological reasons ... why people broke the act in spite of its disastrous consequences".In a follow-up report a week later, Meyerson discussed an upcoming trip to London where he was going to negotiate world film rights for the novel, and stated, "I ... wish to tell [the minister of information] that I do not intend being a bad ambassador for South Africa when I go to London."So where is Meyerson now? An online search found a psychologist of the same name and age, also born in South Africa, who has an LLB and now lives in London. He did not respond to emailed requests for comment, so it might be him, or it might not.Nowhere in this Meyerson's biography or list of achievements is there any mention of An Act of Immorality.Whoever wrote the book has succeeded in obscuring this part of his past. There is, in fact, very little remaining evidence that the book existed at all. It has fallen almost entirely from view.The question as to why this has happened might be easy to answer: this is a horrible story, and one that we would prefer not to remember...