THE HOUSE OF TRUTH & BLOKE AND HIS AMERICAN BANTU, two plays

86pp., paperback, Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781776148875

Foreword by Shane Graham.

The one-man play The House of Truth portrays the life and career of playwright and journalist Can Themba. 

The two-person play Bloke and His American Bantu celebrates the friendship between exiled writer Bloke Modisane and American poet Langston Hughes.

"These scripts bring to vivid life three luminaries of the 1950s and 1960s, recreating for the stage their voices, their conversations, their joys and their sorrows. They are a homage to the bonds of friendship and show how connections across class, nationality and geographic distance sustained black artists in their struggles to be creative in conditions of poverty, apartheid and exile." Lesley Cowling, Associate Professor, Wits Centre for Journalism

"Mahala does not simply write the archive; he animates it. This work is an act of poetic remembrance, a homage to history, and a testament to the enduring power of storytelling. His plays transcend mere performances to become vibrant acts of preservation." Dr Refiloe Lepere, lecturer,Department of Performing Arts, Tshwane University of Technology

Short story writer, novelist, playwright and literary critic Siphiwo Mahala is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg and a research fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. He is the editor of Imbiza Journal for African Writing.