Harry Bloom

Harry Saul Bloom (1 January 1913 – 28 July 1981) was a South African journalist, novelist, activist and lecturer. Solomon Harris Bloom was born into a Jewish South African family. He was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand, obtaining his law degree in 1937. He subsequently became an advocate in Johannesburg. In 1940, he married Beryl Cynthia Gordon, after knowing her three weeks, and they moved to London, living in Old Compton Street during the Blitz. Writing under the pseudonyms Walter and Beryl Storm (to avoid anti-Semitism), they worked as war correspondents during the Second World War, and covered the Nuremberg trials after the war. The couple moved to Czechoslovakia and together they wrote the book We meet the Czechoslovaks, an account of their early years in Czechoslovakia, also under the Storm pseudonyms. Beryl later played an active role in editing, advising and typing the manuscripts for his subsequent books. Fearful for their security as Stalinism gained strength in post-war Eastern Europe, they returned to South Africa, and settled in Bramley, Johannesburg. In 1957, a few months after Bloom's first novel, Episode in the Transvaal, was published, the family moved to Cape Town. Episode, a novel, was published in 1956; it was later retitled Transvaal Episode. It was dedicated to four people: his wife Beryl, who provided editorial assistance and typed the manuscript; Bram Fischer, Bloom's close friend who defended Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial; Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, and Guy Routh. Bloom worked with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in the 1950s. During the state of emergency that followed the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, he was detained for 45 days without charges or trial, first at Roeland Street Prison and later at Worcester Prison near Cape Town. He worked on Whittaker's Wife (1962) during this time. King Kong: An African Jazz Opera (1961) became a musical. Episode was republished in 1981. In 1963, Bloom left South Africa for Kenya, mainly due to his opposition to apartheid, and then moved to England.