Professor Charles van Onselen is a researcher and historian, based at the University of Pretoria

University of Pretoria

The University of Pretoria is a multi campus public research university located in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. He resides in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

.

He was formerly employed at the University of the Witwatersrand

University of the Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...

, where he headed the Institute of Advanced Social Research. He is a well-known critic of Afrikaner

Afrikaner

Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...

 nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

.

His most notable published work is The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper 1894-1985

The Seed is Mine

The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper 1894-1985 , written by Charles van Onselen, is a profound social history of one man and his struggle in a racially divided South Africa...

(Oxford: James Currey, 1996). The book was described as a 'detailed and compelling history of the effect of South Africa's Land Laws on one man and his family'. ^{http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/safrica2/safrftnts.html} He received the Alan Paton Award

Alan Paton Award

The Alan Paton Award is a South African literary award that been conferred annually since 1989 for meritorious works of non-fiction. Sponsored by the Johannesburg weekly the Sunday Times, recipients represent the cream of contemporary South African writers who produce works that are judged to...

 for the book in 1997. He is also well known in academic circles for his two volume pioneering social and economic history of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century Witwatersrand

Witwatersrand

The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...

: "New Babylon New Nineveh: everyday life on the Witwatersand 1886-1914".

Also wrote "Small Matter of a Horse: The Life of 'Nongoloza' Mathebula, 1867-1948" [Ravan Press, 1984]; The story of Nongoloza has further repercussions in the South African prison gang legends as described in the excellent "The Number" by Jonny Steinberg

Jonny Steinberg

Jonny Steinberg is a South African writer and scholar. In the mid-1990s he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Oxford University's Balliol college, from which he graduated with a doctorate in political theory. He returned to South Africa in 1998 and worked for the national daily...

.

His latest work is titled The Fox and the Flies and is published by Jonathan Cape an imprint of Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

. The Fox and the Flies provides a social, political, and economic history of the Atlantic (?) underworld from about 1890 until 1918, the year Joseph Silver was executed by the Austro-Hungarian military. The book tracks the life of Joseph Silver

Joseph Silver

Joseph Silver also known as the "King of Pimps", was a man who terrorized women in Johannesburg, South Africa during the late 19th century and early 20th century.-Name:...

, whom van Onselen argues is Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

.