Two hundred years of indigenous literature in South Africa

As far back as the 1860s, Tiyo Soga wrote about the need to collect and write stories about African pasts so that they could be deposited in newspaper archives, which could become a ‘big corn pit’ of knowledge for the nation. His biographer noted that he was sometimes up after midnight in a hut, ‘no...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Contree Vol. 91; pp. e1 - e10
Main Author:	Odendaal, Andre
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	Afrikaans English
Published:	AOSIS 18-09-2024
Subjects:	decolonisation early african nationalism indigenous literature s.e.k. mqhayi sa intellectual history transforming universities
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	As far back as the 1860s, Tiyo Soga wrote about the need to collect and write stories about African pasts so that they could be deposited in newspaper archives, which could become a ‘big corn pit’ of knowledge for the nation. His biographer noted that he was sometimes up after midnight in a hut, ‘notebook in hand’, learning from ‘wrinkled countrymen of his own’ about the past. Izibongo zoogxa, a compilation of some of the writings of Samuel Edward Krune (S.E.K.) Mqhayi, one of the most important figures in the history of Xhosa literature, is part of the multigenerational harvest that Soga envisaged, and there are two special reasons to celebrate its publication.
ISSN:	0379-9867 2959-510X
DOI:	10.4102/nc.v91i0.457