Mhudi by Sol T. Plaatje - An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years ago

Paperback. 225pp. printed by The Lovedale Press in 1957. 

Preface by author Sol T. Plaatje, dated 1930.Mint condition inside, paperback cover a little worn, but not bad. Background info:

Sol T. Plaatje 1876-1932

(Full name Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje) South African novelist, diarist, linguist, translator, newspaper editor, journalist, and political activist.

Plaatje was a multitalented man of letters and a political activist, who, inspired by a profound love for his Black South African people, worked tirelessly to promote their civil rights and to preserve their cultural heritage during the early years of white political supremacy in South Africa. Often noted for his numerous contributions to government reform, he is also remembered as the author of works of fiction and nonfiction that express his political and cultural ideals.

Plaatje's novel Mhudi,set in an early period of South African history, also reflects his major thematic concerns. During the clash of several warring tribes and the onslaught of white Boer rule the heroine, Mhudi, and her lover Ra-Thaga, members of the same tribe, meet, undergo displacement and deprivation, and marry. Critics point out that through the character of Mhudi, Plaatje describes his belief in the healing effect women exercise on race relations; another relationship in the novel, the friendship achieved between a native African and a Boer, has a similar significance. As critics note, Plaatje suggests in the novel that a solution to the evils of prejudice between Blacks and whites begins with a rejection of racism on a personal level.