The Will To Die By Can Themba

All books are second hand

These stories and 'reports' of black Johannesburg in the late 1950s ('banned' in South Africa until August 1982) gather together the best writings of Can Themba, who died in Swaziland in 1968. Lewis Nkosi wrote in his preface: "He fused into the English language the township idiom and rejuvenated tired words with an extreme imagery deriving from a life of danger and violence Can Themba's most splendid moments of journalism were the celebration of township life, because for him the township in his case Sophiatown represented the strength and the will to survive of the African people, for in the township the moments of splendor were very splendid indeed, surpassing anything white Johannesburg could offer."