‘Why would you marry me?’ Can Themba asked his 32-year-old girlfriend, Anne Sereto. It was 1959, and Can was a 35-year-old bachelor. This was an odd way of proposing marriage, but then again Can von Themba was no ordinary man – he was ‘the lanky, shambolic of dress, elegant in speech and writing, boozing, impish, scholarly journalist’, as Aggrey Klaaste described him.

Themba had been in the public eye since winning the Drum short story competition and subsequently joining the stable in 1953. Shortly after he joined Drum, the magazine was inundated with correspondence from readers seeking advice relating to matters of the heart from the young bachelor. In his editorial comment of the August 1953 issue, Anthony Sampson wrote that most of these letters were from students who knew Themba as their English master and admired him ‘as both a teacher and a love expert but felt shy of asking him direct questions about these things’. According to Sampson, Themba's fan mail came ‘as far afield as from Nigeria’.

Themba jokingly wrote that readers seeking his romantic advice tended to take his surname ‘Themba’ (meaning ‘trust’) literally. ‘After all I am an ignorant bachelor. The problems they send me help me swell my ideas for future “passionate stories” – andmoola!’ At the time, Themba had published two short stories with Drum – ‘Passionate Stranger’ and ‘Mob Passion’.

Like most other young men about town, Themba had had occasions for loving. Some of these romantic associations were documented and publicly spoken about; others were not publicly known; others remain unsubstantiated rumours to this day.

It is important that we take an interest in Themba's personal life in an attempt to know him as a person beyond the popular public figure. Although a number of texts refer to some of his relationships, other fundamental aspects, such as his marriage, are hardly ever mentioned; nor is his family life explored in any depth.