Ezekiel Mphahlele

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sculpture by Ezekiel Mphahlele in Pretoria

Ezekiel Mphahlele (born December 17, 1919 in Marabastad , Pretoria ; † October 27, 2008 in Lebowakgomo ; from 1977 Es'kia Mphahlele ) was a South African author and literary scholar . He has been referred to as the "founder of modern black South African literature".

Life

Youth and first professional experience

Mphahlele grew up in Maupaneng near what was then Pietersburg (today: Polokwane). When he was 13, he moved with his siblings to his grandmother's in a slum on Second Avenue in his native Pretoria. He worked there in his grandmother's laundromat. At the age of 15 he came to St Peter's College in Johannesburg . He later stated that at this school he was alienated from African customs. Training as a teacher, which he completed in 1940, secured him a position as a teacher and stenographer at the Ezenzeleni Blind Institute at Roodepoort until 1945 . In 1945 he married Rebecca Mochadibane, with whom he had five children. From 1945 he taught English and Afrikaans at Orlando High School in what is now Soweto and at the same time earned his BA. He belonged to the opposition Transvaal African Teachers Association (TATA). With his publications he attacked the apartheid regime in general and the Bantu Education Act in particular and so his teaching license was revoked in 1952. From then on he worked as a literary editor at Drum. 1954 to 1955 he was a teacher at what was then Basutoland High School in Maseru , Basutoland . On his return he joined the African National Congress in 1955 , which he later left.

In 1957 he received his MA in English Literature from the University of South Africa . The title of his master's thesis was The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction . From this point on he began to publish and publish short stories in magazines such as Drum and New Age . His first collection of short stories, Man Must Live , appeared in 1946 or 1947.

Decades in exile

Mphahlele left South Africa in 1957 for Lagos , Nigeria , where he taught at a Church Mission Society school and later became a lecturer at the University of Ibadan . Among other things, he published the literary magazine Black Orpheus .

He spent 20 years in exile teaching in different countries such as Kenya and Zambia . In 1958, he took part in the first All-African People's Conference in Ghana , which was organized by the Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah . From 1961 to 1963 he lived as director of the Africa program of the CIA -controlled " Congress for Cultural Freedom " in France, then he was in the same position and as a teacher in Kenya until 1966. In the United States , he received his doctorate in creative writing from the University of Denver in 1968 and taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 .

The publication of his autobiographical novel Down Second Avenue in 1959 sparked worldwide interest; the book has been translated into numerous languages. After Mphahlele's second novel, The Wanderers , a story that documents the experience of exiles in Africa and was accepted in lieu of a dissertation , he was proposed for the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature .

In Paris he published The Living and the Dead in 1961 . The African Image appeared in 1962 , based on his master's thesis and offering a historical perspective on South African literature. He later revised the book and a second edition appeared in 1974. In 1967, In Corner B was published in Kenya . The contents of the two story collections are contained in The Unbroken Song (1986), which also contains some of Mphahlele's poems.

Return to South Africa

Mphahlele's books were banned in South Africa. In 1977 he returned to his home country with his family. In the same year he Africanized his first name to Es'kia. In 1983 the ban on his books in South Africa was lifted.

Mphahlele was initially a school inspector in what was then Homeland Lebowa and in 1979 received a professorship for African languages at the Witwatersrand University . He was the first black professor at this university and founded an institute for African literature there. In 1980 and 1984 two more novels were published, Chirundu and Father Come Home , the second part of his autobiography followed in 1984 under the title Afrika My Music .

The first comprehensive collection of his critical writings was published under the title ES'KIA in 2002 , the same year the Es'kia Institute was founded. Mphahlele's life and work are recognized by the Es'kia Institute, a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Johannesburg . It is also dedicated to the preservation of African customs.

meaning

Mphahlele has been called the "founder of modern black South African literature". His autobiographical novels provide insight into the situation of blacks during the apartheid regime and have received critical acclaim. Some of his other works were rated as "incoherent" or "sluggish".

Honors

Bibliography (selection)

English language publications

Autobiographies

  • Down Second Avenue (1959)
  • Africa My Music (1984)

Novels and short stories

  • Man Must Live and Other Stories (1947)
  • The African Image (1962)
  • The Wanderers (1969)
  • Chirundu (1979)
  • Father Come Home (Novella, 1984)

German translations

  • Pretoria, Second Avenue. Construction, Berlin 1961.
  • Chirundu. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1984.

literature

  • NC Manganyi: Es'kia Mphalele. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. (= Volume 11). 3. Edition. Weimar, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , p. 29.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d William Grimes: Es'kia Mphahlele, Chronicler of Apartheid, Dies at 88 , obituary in the New York Times, October 31, 2008
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Obituary: Es'kia Mphahlele. The Guardian, November 24, 2008, accessed January 15, 2018
  3. ↑ a b Leaving the forefront of African lit. Mail & Guardian dated November 7, 2008, accessed January 16, 2018
  4. ↑ Portrait at africansuccess.org (English), accessed on January 16, 2018
  5. ^ Es'kia Mphahlele's African Literary Journey. To Eye on Mphahlele, December 28, 2017.
  6. ^ Ansgar Nünning, Vera Nünning: English literature from seven centuries. Springer, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 9783476055019 , p. 413. Excerpts from books.google.de
  7. ↑ Ezekiel Es'kia Mphahlele. Entry in Mail & Guardian , accessed on January 16, 2018
  8. ↑ Entry at enotes.com (English), accessed on January 15, 2018
  9. ↑ Entry at whoswho.co.za (English; archive version)
personal data
SURNAME Mphahlele, Ezekiel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mphahlele, Es'kia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African author and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Marabastad , Pretoria , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 2008
Place of death Lebowakgomo , South Africa