Es’kia Mphahlele

Es’kia Mphahlele (Source: English Wikipedia) On 27 October 2008, South African writer, teacher and one of the founding figures of modern African literature, Es’kia [Ezekiel] Mphahlele died aged 88 in Lebowakgomo, South Africa. Born on 17 December 1919, Mphahlele grew up in Pretoria. He attended St. Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville and Adams Teachers Training College in Natal.

His protest against the introduction of the Bantu Education Act resulted in his teaching career being cut short. He was banned from teaching anywhere in South Africa. Mphahlele then joined Drum magazine, where at various stages he held the posts of political reporter, sub-editor and fiction editor (1955–57). In 1957, he went into voluntary exile first arriving in Nigeria, where he taught in a high school for 15 months, then at the University of Ibadan, in their extension programme. He also worked at the C.M.S. Grammar School, in Lagos.

Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States. He was director of the African program at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris; coeditor of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1983–87).

Mphahlele wrote two autobiographies, more than 30 short stories, two verse plays and a number of poems. He was the recipient of numerous international awards such as the Ordre des Palmes académiques (1984) and the World Economic Forum Crystal Award (1998). In 1998, Nelson Mandela awarded Mphahlele the Order of the Southern Cross, then the highest recognition granted by the South African Government.

Source: Britannica & Wikipedia