Benedict Wallet Vilakazi

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (born January 6, 1906 near KwaDukuza , Natal , today the Republic of South Africa ; † October 26, 1947 , Johannesburg , South Africa; actually Bambatha KaMshini ) was a poet, writer and linguist who wrote in Zulu . In 1946 he became the first black South African to earn a doctorate.

Life

Benedict Vilakazi was born in 1906 as Bambatha KaMshini at the Groutville mission station near KwaDukuza, Natal. He was the fifth child of the Christian converts Mshini ka Makhwatha and Leah Hlengwane ka Mnyazi. As a child, Vilakazi looked after his family's cows and attended the local mission school. At the age of ten he came to St. Francis College in Mariannhill, a Roman Catholic monastery. Here he was baptized "Benedict Wallet" while his mother insisted that he keep the family name Vilakazi. He graduated as a teacher in 1923 and taught in Mariannhill and later at a seminar in Ixopo .

In 1933 Vilakazi published his first novel Nje nempela ("Real and Truthful"). It is one of the first fictional works in Zulu to deal with a subject from modern life. The novel Noma nini and the collection of poems Inkondlo kaZulu followed in 1935 , the first publication of western-influenced Zulu poetry.

After earning a bachelor's degree from the University of South Africa in 1934 , Vilakazi began working at the Witwatersrand University's Bantu Faculty under Clement M. Doke in 1936 . Together with him he created a Zulu-English dictionary. His teaching position made him the first black South African to teach white South Africans at university level.

Vilakazi's later novels continued to revolve around the life of the Zulu , such as UDingiswayo kaJobe (1939) and Nje nempela (1944), the story of a traditional, polygamous household. His poetry, which was heavily influenced by European romanticism, combined rhythm and rhyme forms that were previously unknown in Zulu with elements of the traditional price poetry izibongo . The poems became increasingly political, denouncing the exploitation not only of the Zulu, but of black Africans in general. His novels and poems were well known in his lifetime as they are today.

With a scientific thesis on oral transmission in Zulu and Xhosa , Vilakazi became the first black South African on March 16, 1946 to obtain a doctorate. He died of meningitis the following year in Johannesburg .

Works

• Inkondlo kaZulu . Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1935 (poetry)
• Noma nini . Yacindezelwa Emshinini Wasemhlathuzane, Mariannhill / Natal 1935 (novel)
• UDingiswayo kaJobe . Sheldon Press, London 1939. (novel)
• Nje nempela . Mariannhill Mission Press, Mariannhill / Natal 1944 (novel)
• Amal'eZulu . Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1945 (poetry)
• Zulu-English Dictionary (with Clement M. Doke ). Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1948 (dictionary)

Web links

• Nomathemba Sithole: Vilakazi, Benedict Wallet , in Dictionary of African Christian Biography
• Biography in web.archive.org