Mhudi. An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago.
Original price
£2,500.00
-
Original price
£2,500.00
Original price
£2,500.00
£2,500.00
-
£2,500.00
Current price
£2,500.00
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Lovedale, South Africa: Lovedale Press.. [1930].
The first novel in English by a black South African. In the rare dust jacket.
First edition. 8vo. 185x120mm. pp. [12], 225 [1bl]. Green cloth, lettered in gilt to upper cover and spine. Original illustrated dustjacked, chipped and a little torn along top and bottom edges but overall very good and rare in any condition. Internally there is some foxing. An excellent copy, in the scarce dustjacket, of an important work of African fiction and one of the earliest attempts by an African writer to give an account of pre-colonial Africa and the first novel in English by a black South African.
Sol Plaatje (1876-1932) took his name from the Boer family who employed his family on their farm. A brilliant student, Plaatje mastered seven languages, including Dutch and English which gave him the right to vote although this would be taken away when the new Union of South Africa was created. Throughout his life, Plaatje was a leading figure in the struggle for black liberation and was a founder member and first General Secretary of what would become the ANC. Plaatje wrote Mhudi in 1919 although it would take him eleven years to get it published. During this long gestation, the book was revised and altered, some critics suggesting that it went through a process of censorship and bowdlerization. Whether or not that is so is a matter of scholarly dispute but what is not in doubt is that this novel, now firmly established in the African canon, represents a brave and early attempt to preserve and regenerate native South African tradition in the face of colonialism.
