Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Editors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: In his Own Voice
- Introduction: Reading in the company of Es'kia Mphahlele
- Correspondents
- 1943
- 1944
- 1948
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972
- 1973
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
- 1977
- 1978
- 1979
- 1980
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1985
- 1987
- 1997
- 2000
- 2002
- 2005
- 2006
- Interviews: Looking In: In Search of Es'kia Mphahlele
- Metaphors of Self
- Interview References
- Index
1979
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Editors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: In his Own Voice
- Introduction: Reading in the company of Es'kia Mphahlele
- Correspondents
- 1943
- 1944
- 1948
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972
- 1973
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
- 1977
- 1978
- 1979
- 1980
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1985
- 1987
- 1997
- 2000
- 2002
- 2005
- 2006
- Interviews: Looking In: In Search of Es'kia Mphahlele
- Metaphors of Self
- Interview References
- Index
Summary
Grahamstown
[Undated], early 1979
Dear Bernth,
Thanks for your note. To my shame I haven't been able to settle down to the review of Lewis N's book. The request came when I was in the throes of moving from the US; then I was unsettled waiting for the inanities of life in this country to take their course, culminating in the giant inanity concerning the University of the North. When I realized there was a conspiracy, in which the African administrator had no mean role, to neutralize my presence, I wondered if my idealism had betrayed me. Things picked up when I was invited to Wits to become Senior Research Fellow in the African Studies Institute, (Tim Couzens’, now headed by Charles Van Onselen – both v. fine guys). I shall return to Wits end of April, & will unpack my boxes to fish out Lewis's book to review it. Please be patient; it shall be done.
My address now will be African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Ave., Joburg 2001, for all correspondence & RAL.
I was given a 2-month fellowship here which I took on after my first month with Wits (Feb). Am finishing a memoir on exile & return which I had started in Phila. André [De Villiers] invited me, which I think was v. sporting of him.
Say Hi to Richard [Rive] & say he's a lucky bastard to be able to make trips in & out, like he has summer & winter cottages abroad. Often I long for those stimulating American encounters, but I always come back to the basic conviction that it was the right things for us to return here, no matter the inanities. And our people's reception – more important than anything else, has been most inspiring. The elite fringe that sees us as ghosts return to challenge or upset their emergent-Africa comfort – the counterparts of the Addison Gayles – one can dismiss as petty. Actually one doesn't even have to deal with them in print like it was with A.G.
Warmest regards,
Zeke
[P.S.] Ravan Press in Jbg is bringing out my novel CHIRUNDU, which no American house that matters would accept. Some of their reservations, outside of the economics, are well taken.
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- Bury Me at the MarketplaceEs'kia Mphahlele and Company: Letters 1943-2006, pp. 381 - 412Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2009