Plaatje, Sol T.

Abstract

Abstract Sol Plaatje (1876–1932) was founding general secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC, later the African National Congress or ANC) and the first black African to publish a novel in English. These two achievements are emblematic of a life that was defined by both literary prominence and political activism. He was a prolific journalist and newspaper editor, providing avenues for political education and documenting the oppression and dispossession of native Africans. He was also a talented linguist and cross‐cultural interpreter, publishing translations of Shakespeare into Setswana for his African readers and Setswana proverbs into English for his British ones. His two most widely read works, Native Life in South Africa (1916) and Mhudi (1930), are both concerned with reclaiming native African culture and history with a view to the sorts of political enfranchisement and empowerment that would not be realized in South Africa until 1994: he was a man both of, and ahead of, his times.