UP celebrates Professor Thula Simpson of the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies who received the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award (NIHSS) for his remarkable body of work titled History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present. Of the 190 entrants to the competition, Prof Simpson was one of a few brilliant literary minds to be recognised and awarded. The ceremony was held at the Javett Arts Centre in Pretoria on Thursday, 31 March 2022.

Prof Simpson was born in Swaziland (Eswatini) in 1980 to a South African family. The family moved to the United Kingdom in 1988, whereafter he lived in Plymouth, London, and Oxford. He completed his BA Honours at King's College, London in 2001, and his DPhil at Birkbeck College, London in 2006. From 2007 to 2009 he was a postdoc in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria, and since then has been a permanent member of staff in the department. He is presently an Associate Professor. His earlier research focused on the ANC’s liberation struggle, and his first book, Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle, was published by Penguin Random House in 2016.

Prof Simpson’s literary works are instrumental in highlighting the nuances of our nation’s past and cultivating a hopeful approach to the future. The book is a unique and uncharted exploration of South Africa's tumultuous history from the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Boer War to the current COVID-19 pandemic. It can be classified as a post-apartheid historiography as it draws on sources which were only recently declassified, such as diaries, letters, eyewitness testimonies and diplomatic reports. This award-winning book gives readers a fresh perspective of South Africa’s recent history and invites them to deepen their understanding of its impact on the nation’s ongoing story.

The history of South Africa post-1994 often goes untold. Being almost a generation beyond the transition into democracy, there is more rich history to explore. “We now have new information that moves the story forward, not just chronologically but also interpretively, as we now know more about the past, in terms of knowing more about what the greatest long-term effects of past events was,” explains Prof Simpson. “We not only go into new archives but old ones too … with new questions.” With this approach, Prof Simpson’s books are an attempt at ensuring that significant chapters of our history do not get lost.

Platforms such as the NIHSS awards play a crucial role in amplifying the causes writers and creators are advocating for. “The entries and winners of the 7th edition of the HSS Awards embody an emergence of new voices, the making of space for fresh or revisited experiences that enrich our field (and therefore humanity) and the inclusion of our histories, her-stories, and their-stories previously untold, or told one-sidedly,” said NIHSS CEO, Professor Sarah Mosoetsa. Even though the past is saturated with painful events and recurring wounds that we are still healing from as a nation, with his book, Prof Simpson advocates for the relevance of history as a tool to understand the present but also as a marker towards a potential and hopeful future. This was an invigorating intellectual task for the professor but equally challenging as he describes the risk of writing about the present and the future: “It involves using history as a resource in interpreting events that are not complete and whose outcome lies in the future. There is an element of predicting what is to come, and you can only know whether you got it right when the future comes and is verified. A commitment to accuracy and timely information required the professor to go above and beyond in his writing process. This included writing about events that occurred as recent as the day before submission to the publisher.

Winners of the NIHSS award are creating works deemed as creative intellectual material which Prof Simpson sees as necessary within academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. “Such work has relevance in broader public society and findings should be easily communicated and circulated to the general population,” says Prof Simpson. In addition, he sees achievements such as the NIHSS award as being encouraging as they bring academic recognition and prove that the two worlds of academia and society can be married.

Prof Simpson is a crucial contemporary voice and an inspiration to creative intellectuals and academics. His work motivates modern day thinkers to push the boundaries of comfort and map out new paths that lead our society to a future we will be proud to participate in.