Words have been part of RAYDA JACOBS’ life for years. “When I was three my grandfather gave me a book and asked me to read him a story,” she recalls. “Because I couldn’t read I made something up.”
After that storytelling became her passion. Rayda, Cape Town-based author of award-winning novel Confessions of a Gambler, has nine books to her credit and her autobiography, Masquerade, was published recently.
Now this popular writer has produced a story specially for YOU readers. Starting next week (the issue dated 19 February) in the fiction slot is The Summer of ’94, a tale in eight instalments about two sisters whose bond is destroyed by deceit. “It’s about the lengths people will go to when they’re hurt,” she says. “I mean murderers and people who do terrible things - they were once children too. I like to question and explore what drove them to commit these acts.”
Rayda (61) has had a busy life. She negotiated the murky waters of apartheid South Africa, lived and worked overseas for nearly three decades and had three husbands. She also wrote the script for and starred in the movie version of Confessions of a Gambler (“I didn’t trust anyone else to play the role”) and has produced several documentaries.
She can’t imagine life without writing. “I don’t write for money, I write because it makes me happy. Every morning I get up and after my shower and hot chocolate I head straight for my computer. I don’t have to work for anyone, I can do what I want. I’ve lived in a fantasy world since I was a little girl.”
Her daughter, Zaida (now 36) who now lives in New York, is pregnant and Rayda plans to be there for the birth. “I’m so excited about becoming a grandmother,” she says. Son Faramarz (now 38) also lives overseas.
Zaida is married to American R&B producer Dirty Harry, who co-produced Alicia Keys’ No One Grammy winner in 2008. “They hang out with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre,” Rayda says proudly.
