Barefoot Arts Meander 2026 — Coffee with Marianne Thamm about her memoir Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and Me: A Memoir of Sorts.

Marianne Thamm joins us for breakfast to talk about her memoir Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and Me: A Memoir of Sorts.

Born in England to a German father — an ex-Luftwaffe pilot who later designed munitions for the apartheid government — and a Portuguese mother, Marianne grew up in Pretoria and became, in her own words, a "half-Portuguese, half-German, recovering Roman Catholic atheist lesbian immigrant."

Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and Me was her first openly personal book: a frank, funny and moving account of a complicated father-daughter relationship set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, apartheid, and the new South Africa.

Marianne Thamm has worked for 40 years as a journalist, author, satirist and comedy writer. She is Associate Editor and Writer-at-Large at Daily Maverick, and has written nine books. She now lives in Cape Town with her family and dogs.