African Book Week:Mhudi

Mhudi

Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago is a South African novel by Sol Plaatje first published in 1930, and one of the first published African novels and the first novel by a black African to be published in English. The novel was republished many times subsequently, including in the influential Heinemann African Writers Series.

The novel is a political historical novel which explores the development of the Traansval kingdom, led by Matabeleland. The novel was originally finished in 1920, but Plaatje was unable to get the novel published. The novel re-invisions the standard Euro-centric narrative of history which supported Apartheid and its racist infrastructure.

Plaatje described the novel as a romance, comparing it to Zulu novels of H. Rider Haggard.

References

·  Chennells, Anthony (1997-05-01). "Plotting South African History: Narrative in Sol Plaatje's "Mhudi"". English in Africa. 24 (1): 37–58. ISSN 0376-8902. JSTOR 40238835.

·  Sanders, Mark (2002-12-25). "Sol T Plaatje:The Essential Interpreter". Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid. Duke University Press. pp. 40–60. ISBN 978-0822329985.