REVISITING SOL PLAATJE'S MAFEKING DIARY, reconsideration and restoration

217pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2023

Sol Plaatje's diary of the siege of Mafeking (1899-1900) during the Anglo-Boer War is the only surviving diary of the war written by a black South African. Journalist, interpreter, author and politician Sol Plaatje (1876-1932) is also the author of Native Life in South Africa, an account of the origins and effects of the Native's Land Act of 1913, and the novel Mhudi. 

Contributors: Vivian Bickford-Smith, John Comaroff, Kevin Davie, Siphiwo Mahala, Andrew Manson, Lesley Mofokeng, Sabata-mpho Mokae, Bill Nasson, Andries Walter Oliphant, Stephan Volz, Brian Willan and Laurence Wright.

Sabata-mpho Mokae teaches Creative Writing at Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley. He is the author of The Story of Sol T. Plaatje and the Setswana novels Ga ke Modisa, Dikeledi and Moletlo wa Msnong. He co-edited, with Brian Willan, Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, criticism, celebration (National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award) and Sol T. Plaatje: A life in letters (South African Literary Award).

Brian Willan is an Extraordinary Professor at Sol Plaatje University and Senior Research Associate, Rhodes University. His biography, Sol Plaatje: A life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, 1876–1932 won an award for non-fiction (biography) from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2020.