Thursday 6 November 2008

Es'kia Mphahlele: And the Man Died

Ezekiel (Es’kia) Mphahlele, African writer, teacher and arts activist, was born on December 17, 1919. He died on October 27, 2008, aged 88. Mphahlele’s writings had a strong autobiographical strain: he was persecuted and driven into exile himself, experiences which provided the material for his art. This was reflected, above all, in his second and most popular work, Down Second Avenue, published in 1959 — a vivid account of growing up in rural northern South Africa and in a bustling Pretoria black township before the Second World War. More here.

African Writers and the Internet

I gave a talk recently at the Institute of Creative Technologies. I looked briefly at the mobile phone revolution in Africa. Jess reported it here.