Joseph Suasso de Lima
DE LIMA, Joseph Suasso. (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. Born in Amsterdam, the son of Portuguese Jews, though he converted to Christianity at an early age. He was conversant with at least eleven languages and after a short and undistinguished career in Batavia, he settled in the Cape in 1818, where he became a schoolmaster at the Lutheran Church. He also became fairly well-known as a poet and after initially befriending his contemporary C.E. Boniface, from 1823 the two 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. According to Bosman (1928) the founding father of children’s theatre in the Cape for in 1825 he established Tot Oefening en Smaak, a dramatic society for children, but had to abandon it again the next year due to puritanical outrage at the effect of theatre on the morality of children. Also, 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. Although his life stabilised to a degree until his death in 1858, he was never really financially successful. Besides the newspaper De Verzamelaar, he was the author of the first history of the Cape published in Africa (1825), while his best known theatrical work was his satire on [[C.E. Boniface] entitled ‘n Zamenspraak tussen Limançon een Dichter en een Prozaisch Kaskonjer. Other theartrical works include ** (See De Beer, 1995, Bosman, 1928; Fletcher, 1994) [TH, JH]
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