Johannesburg – Jonathan Ball Publishers on Monday announced the withdrawal from the market of The Outsider by Prince Mashele.
The Sunday Times revealed that the recently published book purporting to be an “unauthorised biography” of Herman Mashaba was, in fact, funded by the leader of ActionSA himself.
ActionSA has since confirmed that Mashaba paid Mashele R12,5 million to write the book.
Commenting on the book on Monday, ActionSA said: “The project involved a three-year in-depth research exercise into Mashaba’s life.
“A plan to finance the book was presented by Mashele to Mashaba in October 2018.
“But when it became clear that raising the funds would be challenging, Mashaba agreed to provide the initial finance of R12.5 million in his personal capacity.”
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“Following the disclosure that Herman Mashaba had funded the writing of a biography about him by Prince Mashele, as confirmed by Mashaba in a media release today, Jonathan Ball Publishers is left with no option but to withdraw The Outsider from the market,” the book publisher said.
“Jonathan Ball Publishers was unaware of any funding agreement between Mashele and Mashaba when we signed a publishing agreement with Mashele in 2022.
“We view this as a material non-disclosure on the part of the author and a breach of trust.
“We also want to note that the contract Mashaba quotes from in his statement is from 2019 and is not the contract that was signed between Mashele and Jonathan Ball publishers.”