Joseph Suasso de Lima

(1791-1858) A doctor of jurisprudence, translator, teacher, scholar, newspaper editor, stationer and bookseller, prolific and literate poet, writer, playwright and avid supporter of theatre. Also known as J. Suasso de Lima. An active member of the Free Masons.

Biography

Born in Amsterdam, the son of Portuguese Jews, on 27 June 1791, though he converted to Christianity at an early age. Trained as a lawyer. He was conversant with at least eleven languages. He married Gertruida Bakker and they had one daughter. He left her in in 1826 ostensibly because of her profligate lifestyle, and she died in Cape Town in 1836.

Career

After a brief period as lawyer in Amsterdam and a short and undistinguished career in Batavia (1816-1818), he and his wife settled in Cape Town in 1818, maintaining himself with translation, till he became a schoolmaster at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1823. He also became fairly well-known as a poet and translated some novels (e.g. a sentimental novel called Raymond).

After initially befriending and working with his contemporary C.E. Boniface, the two soon became implacable enemies and exchanged public invective in the forms of poems and dialogues ("Zamensprake") to the joy of the public. Ridiculed by Boniface particularly for his small stature, for his physical deformities (which were likened to those of Pope) made him an easy target for his enemies although his superior dignity and wit caused him to the more respected.

In 1826 he started up a weekly newspaper in Dutch, De Verzamelaar (1826-1848), which became the Kaapsche Courant in 1827, but was out of business by 1830, although De Lima kept trying to resuscitate it, notably from 1839 to 1848.

In 1826 he also began a Dutch "Leesboekery" ("reading bookshop"), which also did not do so well.

In 1835 he began a "Boek-, Papier- en Prentenwinkel" ("Book, Paper and Picture Shop"), opening a second shop in 1838 and expanding to create the "Zuid-Afrikaanse Bazaar en Boekwinkel" ("South African bazaar and Bookshop"), which eventually did well enough to stabilize his life to a degree until his death in 1858, though he was never really financially successful. He was also the author of the first history of the Cape published in Africa (Geschiedenis van de Kaap de Goede Hoop, 1825).

He died in the Cape in 1858.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

As director and manager

He was the founding father of children's theatre in the Cape, when he established Tot Oefening en Smaak in 1825 , with the 9 year old J.G. Tredoux (de Jonge) designated the "Director" of the company. It was a dramatic society for children, for which De Lima directed a number of plays, including

They had to abandon the company the next year due to puritanical outrage at the possible effect of theatre on the morality of children. De Lima wrote a number of pamphlets and articles in defense of the theatre for children, but to little avail.

As playwright

Not as prolific as his rival Charles Etienne Boniface, yet he produced a number of works performed in the 19th century.

Original plays

His best known theatrical work was his satire on C.E. Boniface entitled Zamenspraak tusschen Limançon een Dichter en een Prozaisch Gaskonjer.

Other plays included Aballino Junior (1835),

Translations

L’Enragé by Charles Etienne Boniface, as De Dolzinnige, of De Gewaande Dolleman (1823) The play was produced on 23 July 1823.

De Zwervende Jood (1837), possibly translated from one of two French operas by by Fromental Halévy, La Juife (1835 with a libretto by Eugène Scribe) or Le Juif Errant (1852, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges).

[TH, JH]

Sources

De Beer, 1995,

Bosman, 1928: pp 4,124, 256-270,

Fletcher, 1994

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