MORAFE, person, family and nation in colonial Bechuanaland, 1880s-1950s

469pp., illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2024

A history of two generations of the Molema family.

"Magisterial, elegant and shimmering with insight on every page, this captivating book traces the story of a renowned southern African family, the Molemas. Epic and intimate, Morafe presents a compelling and unexpected cast of characters confronting ethical questions of personhood on a rapidly changing frontier. The deft narrative traces the fealties and fault lines within and between families, kin, friends and neighbours, showing how these private dramas had public consequences and shaped larger developments in the sub-continent. A magnificent achievement that changes much of what we think we know about southern African history." Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor Emeritus at WISER, University of the Witwatersrand and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University

"Morafe is the saga of South Africa's formative years as it has not been told before, a luminous sprawling tale of ambition, injustice, love, bitterness, and tragedy ... The story starts in world of the partnered royal 'Barolong' courts, Molema and Montshiwa, under whom Africans and some white men chose to live as subjects, and builds outward, via the successes, loves, divisions and gendered conflicts of a generation of black leaders under siege, including the founders of the African National Congress. It is about people's relentless pursuit of citizenship, through the years of their collective betrayal by the state ... it opens a vista onto southern Africa's past that is needed most desperately right now - there is nothing else like it!" Paul Landau, Professor of History, University of Maryland

Historian Khumisho Moguerane is based at the University of Johannesburg.