[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] His early political writings which began in 1961/62 cemented his career as a left-wing protest writer in the radical pan-African literary scene and led him, Richard Rive, and Jan Hoogendyk to form what Grant Farred called the "Western Cape Protest School" constituted by Wannenburgh, Rive, Alex La Guma, and James Matthews—who occasionally met at Hoogendyk's Rondebosch home.

[25][26][27][28] He was born into a middle-class Capetonian family of Anglo-Germanic and French Huguenot descent at either South Peninsula Maternity Home or Saint Monica's.

[27] After matriculating, Wannenburgh worked as a land surveyor's assistant, salesman, clerk, and window-dresser in the Cape Town City Bowl.

His second wife, Celeste Wannenburgh (née Matthews), is a former Proportional Representative Councillor (Raadslid) for the City of Cape Town, a Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards recipient, and teacher that has served as a commissioner, board member, and advisor on several departmental agencies under South Africa's Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

[51][52] Wannenburgh was an Independent Newspapers reporter, columnist, and sub-editor for almost two decades; spent several years as a stringer for European and North American newspaper houses; and published in a variety of diverse European and African political, short fiction, and wildlife publications (including Black Orpheus, Présence Africaine, Animan, Atlantis, GEO, New African, New Contrast, New Age, Negro Digest, Nagyvilág, Transition, London's Tribune and Gauteng's The Sunday Independent).

[53][54][55][56][57][58] In his 2010 Cape Times staff obituary, he was remembered as an "affable activist" and "laid-back hero" who underplayed his contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle as a journalist, writer, go-between, and revisionist historian.

[32][73][74][75] Wannenburgh remained in South Africa in the early 1960s rather than going into self-imposed exile, however, he did relocate in 1965 (according to Roger Field) to Lüderitz, Namibia for a time—where he worked as a local History teacher and alluvial diamond researcher/prospector.

[76][77][3][78] Prior to leaving "his [Muizenberg] home in a hurry" (in 1965), he received a decisive written warning from Hendrik Verwoerd's government to 'choose' exile before the situation escalated; and while away, a painting described by Wannenburgh as protest art gifted to him by Alex La Guma (after joint work on a SACPO [South African Coloured People's Organisation] election campaign) was likely confiscated by trespassing Special Branch, who had visited Wannenburgh before for questioning in either the late '50s or early '60s when he first lived as a bachelor in Rondebosch.

[86][87][88] This 'Western Cape Protest School' first began meeting collectively at the Rondebosch home of Wannenburgh's good friend, Jan Hoogendyk.

The two surviving authors (and their families), Alf Wannenburgh and James Matthews, both attended the Cape Town re-launch of Quartet 45 years later in their native South Africa.

"[102] "Rive's Modern African Prose anthology became their [Heinemann's] runaway bestseller, setting the fashion for an entire post-war literature that is now accepted worldwide.

Yet when Heinemann duly asked him to revise it – and to remove his 'white' contributors [i.e. Alf Wannenburgh and Jack Cope] – he simply refused, despite the loss in royalties.

[110][111][112] Wannenburgh's writing and the photography of Ian Murphy, in unison, create a detailed re-telling of the wonders of the Rhodesian landscape such as the Victoria Falls, The Great Eastern Highlands, and the Matobo Hills.

[114][115][116][117] Aware of the urgency of the task, Alf Wannenburgh, Peter Johnson and Anthony Bannister searched deep in the Kalahari thirstlands to find those few remaining Bushmen who still live as their forefathers have done for the past 20 000 years.

[125][126][127] Some speculate that his textual portrayal of Sarah Baartman (the 'Hottentot Venus') and her implied significance within the larger scheme of his unconventionally sensitive anthology on once obscure South African history, constitutes one of the earliest revisionist histories printed by mainstream publishers during the apartheid era for widespread domestic and international consumption beginning with the initial 'People with a punch!'

[131] In a 1990 (April 9) issue of Sports Illustrated, the American sportswriter, John Steinbreder, called it "an extraordinary celebration of wing shooting, rich with sumptuous photographs, fine writing and elegantly bound in green suede and leather.

During the research and interviewing portions of this book, Wannenburgh was given privileged access to private tracts mostly owned by families who had held custodianship for generations.