THE NEW AFRICAN, A STUDY OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF H.I.E. DHOMO
BY TIM COUZENS
FIRST EDITION, RAVEN PRESS, 1985, SOFTCOVER, ILLUSTRATED, INDEX, 382 PAGES, CONDITION: NEW
Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo (1903 1956) is one of the major founding figures of South African literature and perhaps the first prolific African creative writer in English. His younger brother was the artist R. R. R. Dhlomo, and the great Zulu composer, R. T. Caluza, is a near relative. His father, Ezra, was a friend of Bambatha, who led the Bambatha rebellion. Dhlomo himself held many jobs during his short life, but always regarded his literary production as his major achievement:
"My creative life is the greatest thing I can give to my people, to Africa. I am determined to die writing and writing and writing. And no one can stop, fight or destroy that. It is the soul, the heart and, the spirit. It will endure and speak truth even if I perishI have chosen the path to serve my people by means of literature, and nothing will deflect me from this course."
Dhlomo passed in 1956 and his literary oeuvre was already considerable: dozens of plays and short stories, and over one hundred poems complement his regular editorial and political work. Nearly half of his known work, however, has been lost, due to writer's relatively long obscurity amongst other African writers better known today. Dhlomo was nevertheless a key figure among the early generation of writers, including Sol Plaatje and Thomas Mofolo, who established a literary tradition for the more recent generation(s) to build on.
The author, Tim Couzens (19442016) was a South African literary and social historian. He was on staff at the Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences , University of the Witwatersrand.
Couzens authored 16 distinct works and was also involved in the publication of Nelson Mandela's "Conversations With Myself".
