About the author

John Ryan, photographed by Robyn Udemans

John Ryan was born in 1936 in Umtata, economic centre of the Transkei and South Africa’s Wild Coast, where his second book, Spy story, is set.

Ryan has a remarkable background in journalism. He is a doyen among foreign correspondents reporting on Africa and has covered events on the continent for almost 40 years. He is the only journalist to have reported on Nelson Mandela’s court case and his release from jail, 27 years later.

Ryan returned to South Africa after several years on newspapers in Britain, Canada and what is now Zimbabwe. His first book, One Man’s Africa, is a record of his time as a foreign correspondent. Interlaced with many of Ryan’s reports of the day, it reflects history in the making. Ryan was involved in five wars and detained four times.

The book also records the process of revolution in South Africa itself, the struggle against apartheid and how the author’s own life was changed as he fought to maintain his integrity as a journalist during that struggle. One reviewer said of the book, “When John Ryan writes (about Africa) nobody comes second.”

Ryan could claim other curious distinctions, as a pioneer in the popular fields of shark cage photography and bungee jumping. He covered the filming of the 1969 movie, Blue Water, White Death, shot a hundred miles off the coast of South Africa, where protective cages were used for the first time for close-ups of great white sharks. And years later, he fell off the loading bay of a Hercules C130 transport aircraft that was dropping supplies to rebels during Zimbabwe’s ceasefire. Fortunately he was on a harness and managed to hold on to his cameras.

Ryan has received the English Academy Award for creative writing and was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University.

Apart from covering Africa for all those years, he was at other stages Chief Assistant Editor of the Rand Daily Mail and Managing Editor of the Eastern Province Herald in Port Elizabeth and the Argus newspaper in Cape Town.

Spy story has its origins in the fact that he grew up in the Transkei during the latter part of World War II and that his father was head of the National Reserve Volunteers there and so privy to a lot of confidential information. Thus, to a large extent, it is autobiographical. Most of the events it records happened. All the main characters actually existed. The Wild Coast, that area of the Indian Ocean bordering the remote Transkei, was a prime hunting ground for German submarines during that war. They would target Allied convoys using the alternative supply route through the Suez Canal. Many neutral vessels plying between African ports were also sunk.

John Ryan now lives in Somerset West, near Cape Town. He and his wife Janet have four daughters and nine grandchildren. He is currently working on a third book.