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Biography of Samuel Edward Krune MqhayiName: Samuel Edward Krune MqhayiBirth Date: December 1, 1875 Death Date: July 29, 1945 Place of Birth: Cape Province, South Africa Nationality: South African Gender: Male Occupations: writer, novelist, poet Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (1875-1945) was a South African novelist and poet who excelled in the Xhosa praise-poem.Samuel Mqhayi was born on Dec. 1, 1875, among the Xhosa of Cape Province (South Africa). He was trained as a teacher at the Lovedale institution, but he soon became famous as a traditional poet. He began his writing career by contributing to various Xhosa newspapers and by writing a story entitled Ityala lama-wele (1914; The Lawsuit of the Twins). Dealing with a trial in a tribal court, it was mainly designed to extol customary judicial procedure, which was threatened by the growing implantation of European courts.Mqhayi's deep concern with the lore and history of his people prevented him from teaching at Lovedale, for he could not agree with the official version of South African history in the textbooks. He therefore devoted himself more and more to writing. His major imaginative work, U-Don Jadu (part 1, 1929), …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…the occasion of the Prince of Wales's visit to South Africa in 1925, Mqhayi expatiated with overt irony on the ambiguity of Britain's contribution to the "enlightenment" of Africans: "She sent us the preacher, she sent us the bottle; she sent us the Bible and barrels of brandy."In thus bridging the gap between tradition and novelty, Mqhayi deserved to be called the father of Xhosa poetry by Zulu critic B. W. Vilakazi. Mqhayi died on July 29, 1945. Associated Works U-Don Jadu (Book) Further Reading The fullest account of Mqhayi is to be found in Albert S. Gérard, Four African Literatures (1971). Further background is in Jahnheinz Jahn, Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing (1966; trans. 1968), and Robert H.W. Shepherd's two works, Lovedale and Literature for the Bantu: A Brief History and a Forecast (1945) and Bantu Literature and Life (Lovedale, 1955).Mqhayi in translation, Grahamstown: Department of African Languages, Rhodes University, 1976. |