Brian Willan – författare

While the story of modern South Africa has long captured global attention, the story of one of its key forefathers has been eclipsed by those of more iconic political figures. In Sol Plaatje: A Life, Brian Willan restores to history the importance of a remarkable man whose contributions as an intellectual, politician, teacher, linguist, and journalist expanded and advanced the vision of a common South Africa.Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources reflecting decades of archival and field work, Willan animates Plaatje’s personal and professional fortunes in the context of the tumultuous changes that overtook South Africa during his lifetime, spanning the country’s industrialization and the rise of African nationalism in the early twentieth century. A pioneer in the history of the black press and a literary luminary, Plaatje translated Shakespeare into his native tongue, Setswana, the first such into any African language. Plaatje was a founder of the African National Congress in 1912 and led its campaign against the notorious Natives Land Act of 1913, efforts resonant more than a century later as the ANC today seeks to salvage its legacy from the stain of twenty-first-century corruption. This richly woven biography is essential reading for anyone interested in the generation of black leaders who came before Mandela.

A contemporary account of the war from an African intellectual.This diary offers a view of the siege of Mafeking, one of the most famous sieges of the South African War. The author, Sol Plaatje, was one of the founders of the African National Congress in 1912. Additional material from oral and archival research has also been incorporated into this edition.South Africa: David Philip/New Africa Books

Sol Plaatje is celebrated as one of South Africa's most accomplished political and literary figures. A pioneer in the history of the black press, editor of several newspapers, he was one of the founders of the African National Congress in 1912, led its campaign against the notorious Natives Land Act of 1913, and twice travelled overseas to represent the interests of his people. He wrote a number of books, including - in English - Native Life in South Africa (1916), a powerful denunciation of the Land Act and the policies that led to it, and a pioneering novel, Mhudi (1930). Years after his death his diary of the siege of Mafeking was retrieved and published, providing a unique view of one of the best known episodes of the South African War of 1899-1902. At the same time Plaatje was a proud Morolong, fascinated by his people's history. He was dedicated to Setswana, and set out to preserve its traditions and oral forms so as to create a written literature. He translated a number of Shakespeare's plays into Setswana, the first in any African language, collected proverbs and stories, and even worked on a new dictionary. He fought long battles with those who thought they knew better over the particular form its orthography should take. This book tells the story of Plaatje's remarkable life, setting it in the context of the changes that overtook South Africa during his lifetime, and the huge obstacles he had to overcome. It draws upon extensive new research in archives in southern Africa, Europe and the US, as well as an expanding scholarship on Plaatje and his writings. This biography sheds new light not only on Plaatje's struggles and achievements but upon his personal life and his relationships with his wife and family, friends and supporters. It pays special attention to his formative years, looking to his roots in chiefly societies, his education and upbringing on a German-run mission, and his exposure to the legal and political ideas of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony as key factors in inspiring and sustaining a life of more or less ceaseless endeavour.

International scholars explore one of the most important postcolonial novels of African literature.Joint winner of Best Non-Fiction Biography, Humanities and Social Sciences Awards 2020 Sol Plaatje's Mhudi is the first full-length novel in English to have been written by a black South African and is widely regarded as one of Africa's most important literary works. Drawing upon both oral and literary traditions, Plaatje uses the form of the historical novel, and romance genre, to explore the 19th-century dispossession of his people, to provide a novel black perspective on their history. It is a book that speaks to present-day concerns, to do with land, language, history and decolonisation. Today the novel has iconic status, not only in South Africa, but worldwide - it has been translated into a number of languages - and its impact on other writers has been profound. The novelist Bessie Head described it as "more than a classic; there is just no other book on earth like it. All the stature and grandeur of the author are in it."A century after its writing in London in 1920 [it was published in South Africa in 1930, for reasons explained in the book], and at a time of intellectual ferment, with debates on decolonisation to the fore, in popular culture as much as in the academy, this book celebrates Mhudi's place in African literature, reviews its critical reception, and offers fresh perspectives. The contributors discuss Mhudis genesis, writing and publication; its reception by literary critics from the 1930s to thepresent; Mhudi as a feminist novel; Mhudis use of oral tradition; issues of translation; Mhudi in the context of African literature and history, and the decolonisation of the curriculum. An authoritative listing of all editions of Mhudi, translations as well as in English completes the book.SABATA MOKAE is a novelist and lecturer in creative writing at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, and the author of The Story of Sol T. Plaatje (2010). BRIAN WILLAN is Senior Research Fellow at Rhodes University, Extraordinary Professor at Sol Plaatje and North West Universities. He is the author of Sol Plaatje: a life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje,1876-1932 (2018), and co-editor (with Janet Remmington and Bheki Peterson) of Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present (2016).Africa: Jacana