Bongani Ngqulunga – författare

This book explores the profound intellectual legacy of the late Ntongela Masilela, a groundbreaking literary historian whose analytical significance surged following his death in 2020. Part biography and part scholarly dialogue, the book examines Masilela''s extensive unpublished online archive alongside his published works and lectures, contextualisng his revolutionary identification of the New African Movement (1880s-1960s).

The volume illuminates how Masilela documented the critical contributions of New African intellectuals and litterateurs who navigated early modernity during the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and thereafter. By analysing Masilela''s unfinished historical project and interpretive framework, the volume reveals his far-reaching multidisciplinary influence across literature, film studies, African studies, and sociology.

Opening with personal reflections that showcase the extraordinary empathetic relationships Masilela cultivated with each editor, this essential work brings overdue attention to a scholar whose insights continue to reshape our understanding of South African cultural and intellectual history. It serves as an essential resource for students and researchers of African studies, literary criticism, cultural theory, and decolonial thought.

Most chapters in this volume were originally published in Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies and are presented here with a new Preface and personal reflections from the editors.

This book explores the profound intellectual legacy of the late Ntongela Masilela, a groundbreaking literary historian whose analytical significance surged following his death in 2020. Part biography and part scholarly dialogue, the book examines Masilela''s extensive unpublished online archive alongside his published works and lectures, contextualisng his revolutionary identification of the New African Movement (1880s-1960s).

The volume illuminates how Masilela documented the critical contributions of New African intellectuals and litterateurs who navigated early modernity during the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and thereafter. By analysing Masilela''s unfinished historical project and interpretive framework, the volume reveals his far-reaching multidisciplinary influence across literature, film studies, African studies, and sociology.

Opening with personal reflections that showcase the extraordinary empathetic relationships Masilela cultivated with each editor, this essential work brings overdue attention to a scholar whose insights continue to reshape our understanding of South African cultural and intellectual history. It serves as an essential resource for students and researchers of African studies, literary criticism, cultural theory, and decolonial thought.

Most chapters in this volume were originally published in Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies and are presented here with a new Preface and personal reflections from the editors.

In 1912, just over a year after returning from his studies at Columbia and Oxford, the thirty-year-old Pixley ka Isaka Seme succeeded where others had failed in forming a political organisation that represented all black South Africans. Seme also established a national newspaper, became one of the pioneering black lawyers in South Africa, bought land from white farmers for black settlement at the time when opposition to it was gaining momentum, became an adviser and confidant to African royalty, and was considered a leading visionary for black economic empowerment. And yet, when he became president general of the ANC in the 1930s, he brought it to its knees through sheer ineptitude and an authoritarian style of leadership. On more than one occasion he was found guilty for breaching the law, which partly led to him being struck off the roll of attorneys. This book discusses in detail Seme’s extraordinary life, tracing it back to his humble beginnings at Inanda Mission to his triumphs and disappointments across the continents, in his public and private life. When Seme died in 1951 he was bankrupt and his political standing had suffered greatly. And yet he was praised as one of the greatest South Africans ever to have lived. For all this, he has largely been forgotten. This biography brings the remarkable life of this extraordinary South Africa back to public consciousness.