African Writing Today by Ezekiel Mphahlele (editor). Baltimore. 1967. Penguin Books. 347 pages. paperback. 2520. Cover design by John Sewell.
DESCRIPTION - Foreigners still begin at Calais for most English-speaking readers. Air travel and telstar may have reduced distances but how many of use despite the speed of modern communications, can name the dominant literary figures of contemporary European, African, or American countries? Or are familiar with what is being thought or written in these areas? We are isolated. And complacent. This new Penguin series is designed to break this sound-barrier of inertia, language, culture, and tradition. African Writing Today provides a cross-section (in translation, where necessary) of recent African work in English, French, and Portuguese from the following countries: Angola, Cameroun, Congo, Dahomey, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Moqambique, Nigeria, Ruanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa. Editor: Ezekiel Mphahlele. CONTENTS: Introduction; NIGERIA - Chinua Achebe - Extract from Arrow of God; Cyprian Ekwensi - Night of Freedom; Wole Soyinka - Extract from The Swamp / Dwellers / Requiem; Amos Tutuola - Extract from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; Onuora Nzekwu - Extract from Blade Among the Boys; SIERRA LEONE - Abioseh Nicol - Life is Sweet at Kumansenu; Sarif Easmon - Bindeh's Gift; GHANA - Kwesi Brew - The Harvest; Christina Ama Ata Aidoo - The Message; George Awoonor-Williams - Rediscovery: KENYA - Kuldip Sondhi - Bad Blood; Joseph E. Kariuki - New Life; Grace Ogot - Tekayo; CONGO (Brazzaville) - Felix Tchikaya U'Tam'si - Presence; Sylvain Bemba - The Dark Room; CONGO (Leopoldville) - Antoine-Roger Bolamba - A Fisfful of News; RUANDA - Jean-Baptiste Mutabaruka - Song of the Drum; SENEGAL - Birago Diop - The Wages of Good; David Diop - To the Mystery-mongers; Ousmane SocE - Extract from Karim; Joseph Zobel - Flowers ! Lovely Flowers !; LEopold SEdar Senghor - Death of the Princess / Negro Mask; GUINEA - Camara Laye - Extract from The Radiance of the King; CAMEROUN - Mbella Sonne Dipoko - Autobiography / Love; Ferdinand Oyono - Extract from The Old Negro and the Medal; IVORY COAST - AkE Loba - Extract from Kocoumbo, The Black Student; DAHOMEY - Paulin Joachim - Burial; Jean Pliya - The Fetish Tree; GAMBIA - Lenrie Peters - 'After they put down their overalls'; SOUTH AFRICA - Ezekiel Mphahlele - Remarks on NEgritude / Extract from An African Autobiography; Richard Rive - Dagga-Smoker's Dream; Alex La Guma - Blankets; Can Themba - The Urchin; Dennjs Brutus - 'Let not this plunder be misconstrued'; Todd Matshikiza - Extract from Chocolates for My Wife; Mazisi Kunene - Universal Love; Lewis Nkosi - The Prisoner; ANGOLA - Agostinho Neto - Friend Mussunda; MOCAMBIQUE - J. Craveirinha - Poem of the Future Citizen / Song of the Negro on the Ferry; Luis Bernardo Honwana - Dina; Kalungano - Dream of the Black Mother; Rui Nogar - Poem of the Conscripted Warrior; Biographical Notes on authors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Es'kia Mphahlele (December 17, 1919 - October 27, 2008) was a South African writer, academic, artist and activist. He was born as Ezekiel Mphahlele but changed his name to Es'kia in 1977. Mphahlele's first book of short stories, MAN MUST LIVE, was published in 1947. Banned from teaching by the apartheid government in 1951, Mphahlele supported himself and his family through a series of clerical jobs before leaving South Africa to teach in the British Protectorate of Basutoland. On his return to South Africa, Mphahlele soon found a job as a political reporter, sub-editor and fiction editor on the innovative popular magazine Drum, under its editors Anthony Sampson and later under Sylvester Stein, while studying for a Master's degree by correspondence at UNISA (The University of South Africa). Es'kia Mphahlele's life and work is currently found in the efforts of The Es'kia Institute, a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Johannesburg. During the 1950s Mphahlele became increasingly politicized, and joined the African National Congress in 1955. Disappointed in ANC approach to matters of education - he later disassociated himself from the organization. In 1957, Mphahlele was offered a job teaching in a Church Mission Society school in Lagos, Nigeria. Unwilling to permit him to travel abroad because of his political activities, the South African government finally granted him a passport in September 1957. Mphahlele spent the following twenty years in exile: first in Nigeria, and subsequently in Kenya, where he was director of the Chemchemi Cultural Centre; Zambia; France and the United States, where he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Denver and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Mphahlele returned to South Africa in 1977 and joined the faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand.
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