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Down Second Avenue
Down Second Avenue 0571097162
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
39 people are currently reading
1734 people want to read
About the author
Ezekiel Mphahlele
25 books16 followersBorn Ezekiel Mphahlele, Es'kia Mphahlele (born Dec. 17, 1919, Marabastad, S.Af.—died Oct. 27, 2008, Lebowakgomo), novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and teacher whose autobiography, Down Second Avenue (1959), is a South African classic. It combines the story of a young man’s growth into adulthood with penetrating social criticism of the conditions forced upon black South Africans by apartheid.
Mphahlele grew up in Pretoria and attended St. Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville and Adams Teachers Training College in Natal. His early career as a teacher of English and Afrikaans was terminated by the government because of his strong opposition to the highly restrictive Bantu Education Act. In Pretoria he was fiction editor of Drum magazine (1955–57) and a graduate student at the University of South Africa (M.A., 1956). He went into voluntary exile in 1957, first arriving in Nigeria. Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
He was director of the African program at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris. He was coeditor with Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1983–87).
Mphahlele’s critical writings include two books of essays, The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind (1972), that address Negritude, the African personality, nationalism, the black African writer, and the literary image of Africa. He helped to found the first independent black publishing house in South Africa, coedited the anthology Modern African Stories (1964), and contributed to African Writing Today (1967). His short stories—collected in part in In Corner B (1967), The Unbroken Song (1981), and Renewal Time (1988)—were almost all set in Nigeria. His later works include the novels The Wanderers (1971) and Chirundu (1979) and a sequel to his autobiography, Afrika My Music (1984). Es’kia (2002) and Es’kia Continued (2005) are collections of essays and other writings.
Mphahlele grew up in Pretoria and attended St. Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville and Adams Teachers Training College in Natal. His early career as a teacher of English and Afrikaans was terminated by the government because of his strong opposition to the highly restrictive Bantu Education Act. In Pretoria he was fiction editor of Drum magazine (1955–57) and a graduate student at the University of South Africa (M.A., 1956). He went into voluntary exile in 1957, first arriving in Nigeria. Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
He was director of the African program at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris. He was coeditor with Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1983–87).
Mphahlele’s critical writings include two books of essays, The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind (1972), that address Negritude, the African personality, nationalism, the black African writer, and the literary image of Africa. He helped to found the first independent black publishing house in South Africa, coedited the anthology Modern African Stories (1964), and contributed to African Writing Today (1967). His short stories—collected in part in In Corner B (1967), The Unbroken Song (1981), and Renewal Time (1988)—were almost all set in Nigeria. His later works include the novels The Wanderers (1971) and Chirundu (1979) and a sequel to his autobiography, Afrika My Music (1984). Es’kia (2002) and Es’kia Continued (2005) are collections of essays and other writings.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
December 7, 2016
Reading this book, an early classic of African literature, it seems unbelievable that the author could have somehow gone on to become not only one of the finest writers in Africa, but in the whole world. Mphahlele's childhood is rocked by poverty (and SA's political, economic, social discrimination against blacks) but this does not stop him from learning to read and write relatively very early, and compulsively going through (reading) as many books as he can "devour" no matter how decrepit their condition. There can be no doubt whatsover that he was born to write and excel in intellectualism and "African humanism". Still in his 20s, despite all strictures, he publishes a first book, Man Must Live. Evidence that for him, writing is life, is clear from the fact that he not only keeps and comments on all those early varying reviews of the book, but he exults in them. The literary perfectionist and critic in the author is obvious again when he somewhat criticises his stint at the renowned Drum magazine, not happy with some of the editorial policies of the magazine. As this book shows, Mphahlele is the utmost stylist and writer. One might have expected him to be unduly tedious or boring, but he can be pretty humorous and unorthodox; for example when he ironically chides a supercilious white woman at the time who loved referring to him (a full-fledged adult with a family) as "boy". The author says to her: "What makes you think I am a boy, and not a girl?" !!
August 9, 2019
I suppose one can not fully empathise, or sympathise with people whose lives might be somewhat different to ours ; especially life for women in South Africa during the apartheid regime; but even so the younger ones in that country born in recent times might have some disconnect too (though in their society the awareness would still be there via the elders, history etc) My point here is that I am very much impressed with how important women have been in SA over the years, especially during the apartheid years. Else, how could the author here have survived his youth of deprivation, and gone on to become an outstanding writer and activist? Here, though understated, we can see the strength of the women in this society despite general despair and suppression. This is a society where many youngsters grew up without real fathers/father-figures; yet the mothers, the aunts etc rallied around to fill such voids. The women seem selfless, work around the clock to ensure that the young ones survive and even thrive relatively, despite horrific poverty and oppression by the then regime. Women could even go as far as selling illicit liquor (risking jail sentences) - just to ensure that family, dependants, survive. Yet life goes on as if all is fine, despite institutionalised segregation and suppression. Magnify such wonderful women by thousands and hundreds of thousands, and we realise how heroic they were. What a fine autobiography.
February 11, 2019
A very good narrative here, autobiography if you like. The author comes across as a teacher by nature, didactic, very intelligent and a pacifist in his own way. Such a pity that the then apartheid policies in SA made life a misery and hell for so many people; lots of talent was suppressed and even destroyed. Through it all the author's passion for the written word remains fixed. People like him could have done so Much for the country and people, but the system would not allow it. So he decided on exile in the end, which propelled him to not only fulfill his potential as teacher (lecturer) but also as a world class writer and academic.
February 3, 2018
"In 1947 I decided not to go to church any more. The white press, the white radio, the white Parliament, the white employers, the white Church babbled their platitudes and their lies about 'Christian trusteeship', the 'native emerging from primitive barbarism', 'evangelizing the native'. (...), and the white man saw himself as an eternal missionary among non-whites."
This work has incredible historic value and, in its challenge to Boer rule, is a powerful indictment of white supremacy views, in the past and today. His early childhood years in SA are raked by poverty and destitution under segregated psychotic white rule. However, they form the author, and the women in his life rooting for his education really are the making of the man. However, it is the latter part of the book that reveal the real poet and his awakening political consciousness, his rejection of the white narrative, the Boer violence and utter ignorance of the world surrounding them. As a teacher he is confronted with the paradox of having to teach Afrikaans, in a nation that forces him to live in proximity but totally isolated from the centre of power and decision-making. It is this second part of the book that flows more convincingly and that I believe was written post his escape/emigration to freedom in Nigeria. There are some excerpts that in their beauty and strength are astoundingly powerful:
(...) there's a bunch of whites who reckon they are Israelites come out of Egypt in obedience to God's order to come and civilize heathens; a bunch of whites who feed on the symbolism of God's race venturing into the desert among the ungodly.
(...) darkness in Basutoland. I tried to rip the dark with the razor-edge of my desire; but I found nothing to ease the heaviness of my soul. I scoured the sky with my eyes; in my fancy I raked the stars together, leaving a sieve in the velvet sky. Then I collected them and splashed the sky with them. Some of the stars were pulverized in transit and chalked the blue with a milky way.
His poetic vein in the short stories is incredibly sophisticated in the juxtaposition of images clashing and overlapping in sound colour and verbal texture. A wonderful discovery.
Note: the Kindle edition is very badly formatted, with frequent font and spacing issues. I advise reading the work on paper.
This work has incredible historic value and, in its challenge to Boer rule, is a powerful indictment of white supremacy views, in the past and today. His early childhood years in SA are raked by poverty and destitution under segregated psychotic white rule. However, they form the author, and the women in his life rooting for his education really are the making of the man. However, it is the latter part of the book that reveal the real poet and his awakening political consciousness, his rejection of the white narrative, the Boer violence and utter ignorance of the world surrounding them. As a teacher he is confronted with the paradox of having to teach Afrikaans, in a nation that forces him to live in proximity but totally isolated from the centre of power and decision-making. It is this second part of the book that flows more convincingly and that I believe was written post his escape/emigration to freedom in Nigeria. There are some excerpts that in their beauty and strength are astoundingly powerful:
(...) there's a bunch of whites who reckon they are Israelites come out of Egypt in obedience to God's order to come and civilize heathens; a bunch of whites who feed on the symbolism of God's race venturing into the desert among the ungodly.
(...) darkness in Basutoland. I tried to rip the dark with the razor-edge of my desire; but I found nothing to ease the heaviness of my soul. I scoured the sky with my eyes; in my fancy I raked the stars together, leaving a sieve in the velvet sky. Then I collected them and splashed the sky with them. Some of the stars were pulverized in transit and chalked the blue with a milky way.
His poetic vein in the short stories is incredibly sophisticated in the juxtaposition of images clashing and overlapping in sound colour and verbal texture. A wonderful discovery.
Note: the Kindle edition is very badly formatted, with frequent font and spacing issues. I advise reading the work on paper.
June 16, 2020
An interesting and important account of life as a black person in South Africa at the beginning/middle of the 20th century.
June 13, 2018
My all time favourite autobiography of Mokgaga a Makubele that introduced my to the world of books and reading. Eskia Mphahlele narrates his life story in a very beautiful and sometimes "humourus" way. The book tells a story of a literary giant who used his knowledge to fight the injustices of the past. He narrates the painful story of having to teach the language of the oppressor that he despised but the system forced him to. It is in this book that Mphahlele narrates his story of his upbringing in both Maupaneng and Marabastad. He tell the beautiful story of love in his chapter on marriage to his wife Rebecca and their wedding day. This is a very beautifully written memoir about one of the greatest literary giant who embraced Ubuntu.
April 25, 2014
An autobiographical account of a black writer's life, from his childhood in poverty, to his early teaching career and marriage in a country where the colour of his skin sees him discriminated against. An interesting story for the history of the struggle of men and women like Mr Mphahlele.
June 6, 2024
"A great biography of the remarkable Ntate Eskia Mphahlele, chronicling his life from humble beginnings to his years in exile in Nigeria."
June 10, 2015
This is a childhood memoir encompassing the various local people within the scope of where Es'kia went during childhood. It details peoples struggle with poverty and apartheid. Although most of this took place after 1929 for he was born in 1919, and although apartheid has been outlawed, the descriptions of neighborhood and peoples fears did not seem too different from what I have observed as a tourist.
Poverty enclaves are still there and although a lot of people have embraced the black/white changes, when life still exists in enclaves and feelings get transmitted down through generations true difference from 1900s to 2000s are not yet a total picture.
It is an important historical picture of life which of course is why Penguin Classics continues to offer it.
Poverty enclaves are still there and although a lot of people have embraced the black/white changes, when life still exists in enclaves and feelings get transmitted down through generations true difference from 1900s to 2000s are not yet a total picture.
It is an important historical picture of life which of course is why Penguin Classics continues to offer it.
February 6, 2022
I liked this so much when I first read it years ago but now, on a second reading, it seems a bit unwieldy. The language seems a bit stilted. My sister gave me a copy as a gift and I thought I'd read it again. It was sad in parts because it made me feel homesick. But on the other hand I've got used to all sorts of literature that is so much better, in my opinion. Anyway, the important thing is that it reminds us of how bad the bad times were. Nothing wrong with that. We need to remember, and this book helps us do that.
July 22, 2016
I appreciate this book for its historical value, and the author’s unique voice and perspective. I picked this up from the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg after an incredible three-week trip in South Africa.
And this book does a great job of transporting the reader back to an insane time and place in South African history.
It's both interesting and disgusting how the South African government used every possible arm of the state to harass and denigrate non-whites. Curfews, forcing them to carry papers, police harassment, random searches and seizures of property, beatings, disappearances, etc., these were everyday problems for the majority of the South African people.
A lot of times in this book, however, I feel like the author breezes over important issues. Instead of going into depth on three or four important events in one chapter, he lists lots of events in rapid succession without expounding on them.
As the book nears the end, the rambling gets worse. After each chapter, I had so many questions left unanswered.
An interesting read, but not the most well-constructed memoir.
Great line from the epilogue:
"I used to want to justify myself and my own kind to the white man. I later discovered that it wasn't worth it. It was to myself and to my kind I needed to justify myself. I think now the white man has no right to tell me how to order my life as a social being, or order it for me. He may teach me how to make a shirt or to read and to write, but my forebears and I could teach him a thing or two if only he would listen and allow himself time to feel. Africa is no more for the white man who comes here to teach and to control her human and material forces and not to learn."
And this book does a great job of transporting the reader back to an insane time and place in South African history.
It's both interesting and disgusting how the South African government used every possible arm of the state to harass and denigrate non-whites. Curfews, forcing them to carry papers, police harassment, random searches and seizures of property, beatings, disappearances, etc., these were everyday problems for the majority of the South African people.
A lot of times in this book, however, I feel like the author breezes over important issues. Instead of going into depth on three or four important events in one chapter, he lists lots of events in rapid succession without expounding on them.
As the book nears the end, the rambling gets worse. After each chapter, I had so many questions left unanswered.
An interesting read, but not the most well-constructed memoir.
Great line from the epilogue:
"I used to want to justify myself and my own kind to the white man. I later discovered that it wasn't worth it. It was to myself and to my kind I needed to justify myself. I think now the white man has no right to tell me how to order my life as a social being, or order it for me. He may teach me how to make a shirt or to read and to write, but my forebears and I could teach him a thing or two if only he would listen and allow himself time to feel. Africa is no more for the white man who comes here to teach and to control her human and material forces and not to learn."
March 1, 2017
Mphahlele was born in 1919. This autobiography was published in 1959. Whether or not you know a lot about South African history, reading his account of a person growing up in Maupaneng (a village in Limpopo) and Marabastad (a settlement near Pretoria), and then struggling to find fulfilling work in cities run by a government, which was trying its best to stifle and dehumanise black citizens in any ridiculous way possible, you will probably gain a little insight into why South Africa is the way it is today.
The resilience displayed by Mphahlele is amazing. Despite the infuriating racism he faced – whether from the white people he delivered laundry or messages to, or from the white bureaucracy, which restricted his movements and opportunities – he managed to pursue an education and a teaching and writing career.
Mphahlele’s writing is honest. He does not shy away from airing his opinions on the African National Congress versus Alliance African Convention debate, or his disillusionment with journalism and the church. He does not hide his feelings about leaving a country where his family members continued to suffer under a ruthless apartheid regime.
The anecdotes the author shares about his fellow residents of Second Avenue are particularly engaging. Ma-Lebona definitely stole the show a few times. It was easy to see how, after being surrounded by such interesting people, who were subjected to poverty and scattered by forced removals, Mphahlele remained haunted by his memories of the community.
November 4, 2013
title : down second avenue
author : Ezekiel Mphahlele
characters:Ezekiel- aunt dora- Rebone - Rebecca - the mother of ezekiel- the grandmother
settings the story took place in south Africa
the book was good as it has explained the situation in south Africa and the rudeness of the white people to the black however it was not really interesting because it was basically describing the life of a person in every chapter in the book
plot: ezekiel is country boy who lived with his grandmother while his mother worked in the city. ezekiel moved to the city with his mother and went to school .in the nineteen thirties poverty increased and as result crime did as well . he went to a new school called st. peter's school then to Adam;s college.
ezekiel told Rebone his childhood friend that he loved her but she was already with someone else . then he met Rebecca and fell in love with her . his mother died and after a while he and Rebecca got married . he was banned from teaching in south Africa so he had to look for work in somewhere else . finally he moved with his wife and 3 children to Nigeria for work .
author : Ezekiel Mphahlele
characters:Ezekiel- aunt dora- Rebone - Rebecca - the mother of ezekiel- the grandmother
settings the story took place in south Africa
the book was good as it has explained the situation in south Africa and the rudeness of the white people to the black however it was not really interesting because it was basically describing the life of a person in every chapter in the book
plot: ezekiel is country boy who lived with his grandmother while his mother worked in the city. ezekiel moved to the city with his mother and went to school .in the nineteen thirties poverty increased and as result crime did as well . he went to a new school called st. peter's school then to Adam;s college.
ezekiel told Rebone his childhood friend that he loved her but she was already with someone else . then he met Rebecca and fell in love with her . his mother died and after a while he and Rebecca got married . he was banned from teaching in south Africa so he had to look for work in somewhere else . finally he moved with his wife and 3 children to Nigeria for work .
June 28, 2013
I read it a time ago for school, and I enjoyed it. I got to know more about the hard life people in South Africa lived and live those days. It is a story to think about the power you have to change the things that are wrong in your life. This man, who had nothing at the beginning of everything, felt the need to study and become someone, and so he did. He got a lot of titles and diplomas for being a teacher and he got his family out from that horrible hole that poorness puts you in. His story is touching and it gives you the lesson that, if you don't do something, it's because you don't want to, not because you can't.
June 8, 2016
An important book. Anyone interested in African writing of any type needs to read this. It has the feel of experience and the stench of apartheid. Writers like this who were denied a voice in their homeland - a proper voice, that is - need to be rehabilitated. Yet even today there are those - including many who publish, who run festivals, who run writing courses, who teach - who seem oblivious to the rich tradition of "black" African writing that runs like a rich seam of gold through the Witwatersrand, still awaiting discovery by those with control of the means of production.
The rich nuances in the writing and the perceptive understatement are real joys in this book.
The rich nuances in the writing and the perceptive understatement are real joys in this book.
June 3, 2023
Reads like those stories that you wish your grandfather could have told you about his upbringinging and becoming.
Started out in an entertaining manner, however it seems to drag in the latter chapters. More so because most of the content about the struggle has been shared repeatedly over the years. And a bulk of this book covers South Africa’s oppression era’s experiences. I am sure I would have rated this book 5 stars had I read it in the 90’s or early 2000’s.
Good book.
Started out in an entertaining manner, however it seems to drag in the latter chapters. More so because most of the content about the struggle has been shared repeatedly over the years. And a bulk of this book covers South Africa’s oppression era’s experiences. I am sure I would have rated this book 5 stars had I read it in the 90’s or early 2000’s.
Good book.
June 10, 2016
Good one, bra Zeke. Lovely writing. Tough and real and hardened in the furnace of your experiences in a bad era. The place has changed. Wish you could see it. Life here is good in many ways, but there are bad things happening. Crime is our biggest problem. But that's the same all over the world. Standing on your shoulders, though, we are building a new country. Your writings inspire me.
May 22, 2018
A very nicely-written memoir which gives a window into South Africa's apartheid system of the 1920's through late '40's. Although it shows the hard life of blacks there at that time, it does so from a very personal viewpoint without a lot of preaching or whining.
June 17, 2012
wow ! you got to read it. its a funny book . well written
August 8, 2012
Wow! Excellent book. I love South African writing!
June 7, 2018
I had to give up reading this book. I didn't have any prior knowledge about South Africa, so the book was difficult to understand.
May 13, 2019
I love such old publications as they help contextualize our history and politics to enable us to position the present accordingly .
Professor E Mphahlele was born in 1919. In the book " Down 2nd Avenue". He relates of his early life in Maupaneng village Pietersburg and Marabastad Pretoria. Also of his brief stay in Lesotho. The memoir ends with his self exile to Nigeria at age 37. Their house in Marabastad was on 2nd Avenue.
An early life of poverty, survival, struggle and racial discrimination as was enforced by the apartheid laws of the time. His career included messenger at a law firm, teacher at Orlando High, and journalist at Drum magazine. Married with 3 kids. He experienced first hand the introduction of the inferior Bantu education, forced removals from Marabastad to Attridgeville and the economic depression of 1930's.
A highly personal account of a physically abusive dad who drank a lot, did not support them, and then abondoned them when they were young. He was only able to have a child after 2 miscarriages by wife.
Mom and grandmother were his sheroes who took good care of their extended family.
A story of determination and resilience. Amidst varied stumbling blocks Mphahlele matriculated and obtaibed 2 degrees. He and wife were a formidable team that continued to study further while raising their children. He also managed to pen his debut book "Man Must Live" (1947)
I enjoyed how ntate Mphahlele did not only centre the story on himself, we get other stories within his. He relates in detail of other characters in the community, who gel beautifully in his narration, without being far fetched or deviation. For instance, shenanigans of the girl who snubbed him, Lebone, neighbours, Ma Lebona, who could not stay married for long, business man Dinku Dikae who killed a white cop, tsotsi Boeta Lem, head master Big Eyes. I also recall the Indian trader Abdool.
A brilliant, informative, emotive and reflective offering. A classic. He transported me to Marabastad and a difficult era. Like how the likes of Can Themba brought Sophiatown live to the reader.
I must certainly read more of Prof Mphahlele's many works. His "Africa My Music An Autobiography" will be an ideal next choice.
Professor E Mphahlele was born in 1919. In the book " Down 2nd Avenue". He relates of his early life in Maupaneng village Pietersburg and Marabastad Pretoria. Also of his brief stay in Lesotho. The memoir ends with his self exile to Nigeria at age 37. Their house in Marabastad was on 2nd Avenue.
An early life of poverty, survival, struggle and racial discrimination as was enforced by the apartheid laws of the time. His career included messenger at a law firm, teacher at Orlando High, and journalist at Drum magazine. Married with 3 kids. He experienced first hand the introduction of the inferior Bantu education, forced removals from Marabastad to Attridgeville and the economic depression of 1930's.
A highly personal account of a physically abusive dad who drank a lot, did not support them, and then abondoned them when they were young. He was only able to have a child after 2 miscarriages by wife.
Mom and grandmother were his sheroes who took good care of their extended family.
A story of determination and resilience. Amidst varied stumbling blocks Mphahlele matriculated and obtaibed 2 degrees. He and wife were a formidable team that continued to study further while raising their children. He also managed to pen his debut book "Man Must Live" (1947)
I enjoyed how ntate Mphahlele did not only centre the story on himself, we get other stories within his. He relates in detail of other characters in the community, who gel beautifully in his narration, without being far fetched or deviation. For instance, shenanigans of the girl who snubbed him, Lebone, neighbours, Ma Lebona, who could not stay married for long, business man Dinku Dikae who killed a white cop, tsotsi Boeta Lem, head master Big Eyes. I also recall the Indian trader Abdool.
A brilliant, informative, emotive and reflective offering. A classic. He transported me to Marabastad and a difficult era. Like how the likes of Can Themba brought Sophiatown live to the reader.
I must certainly read more of Prof Mphahlele's many works. His "Africa My Music An Autobiography" will be an ideal next choice.
December 23, 2024
All four of my grandparents were born in South Africa and were more or less contemporaneous with the author. I often thought about them and about the differences and similarities in their lives. On my next visit to my father (born in 1935 and living in Wales), I look forward to discussing this book with him (I don’t think he has read it). The casual racism and injustice and the sense of anger is there on every page; and yet there is also humour, and plenty of positive interactions, and above all an atmospheric sense of time and place.
I spent my gap year in South Africa in 1982 and reading this a couple of events from those days came back to me with great clarity. On one occasion I got lost returning to my uncle’s home and ended up late at night in the kind of place Mphahlele lived. As a white man I was not supposed to be there. I found a police station which was ringed with barbed wire like a fortress, and obtained directions from the police. It was a cold winter’s night and the police, who were all black, were wearing long brown overcoats and caps with brown leather cross belts – their uniforms were like no police uniforms I had ever seen before, and reminded me of first world war Russians. They fascinated me. They were polite but distant: I wondered about them and their lives, and how they related to the apartheid rulers whose instruments they were, and to the other members of their community. This book reveals some of those things I had wondered about.
Something I learned from my visit to Africa, and something which Mphahlele also illustrates, is that even interactions which are superficially friendly and benign can still proclaim injustice. Back in 1982 I worked for a while in a Johannesburg business and was friendly with the black tea lady. One day I was surprised to find her sitting at a desk filing invoices. She told me the filing clerk was off sick, and she had volunteered to do the work, and that she preferred doing this to pushing the tea trolley around. I asked her why she didn’t abandon the tea trolley and do this all the time instead. She said, “I’ve asked the boss if I can do just that, but he says “Oh no Connie, you make such good tea”….”
I spent my gap year in South Africa in 1982 and reading this a couple of events from those days came back to me with great clarity. On one occasion I got lost returning to my uncle’s home and ended up late at night in the kind of place Mphahlele lived. As a white man I was not supposed to be there. I found a police station which was ringed with barbed wire like a fortress, and obtained directions from the police. It was a cold winter’s night and the police, who were all black, were wearing long brown overcoats and caps with brown leather cross belts – their uniforms were like no police uniforms I had ever seen before, and reminded me of first world war Russians. They fascinated me. They were polite but distant: I wondered about them and their lives, and how they related to the apartheid rulers whose instruments they were, and to the other members of their community. This book reveals some of those things I had wondered about.
Something I learned from my visit to Africa, and something which Mphahlele also illustrates, is that even interactions which are superficially friendly and benign can still proclaim injustice. Back in 1982 I worked for a while in a Johannesburg business and was friendly with the black tea lady. One day I was surprised to find her sitting at a desk filing invoices. She told me the filing clerk was off sick, and she had volunteered to do the work, and that she preferred doing this to pushing the tea trolley around. I asked her why she didn’t abandon the tea trolley and do this all the time instead. She said, “I’ve asked the boss if I can do just that, but he says “Oh no Connie, you make such good tea”….”
February 21, 2023
An interesting, simply written, evocative autobiographical novel about the author’s struggle against the racial segregation of the apartheid South African education system during the 1940s and 1950s.
The author writes about growing up in a tribal village near Pretoria and his experiences as a secondary school teacher of Afrikaans and English in the city. He becomes more and more disenchanted and becomes a political activist. This leads to him being barred from teaching. He provides many examples of what the blacks are required to do in order to comply with the Apartheid segregation laws.
Here is an example of the author’s writing style:
‘The Black man must enter the white man’s house through the back door. The Black man does most of the dirty work…Black man cleans the streets but mustn’t walk freely on the pavement;’
This book was first published in 1959.
The author writes about growing up in a tribal village near Pretoria and his experiences as a secondary school teacher of Afrikaans and English in the city. He becomes more and more disenchanted and becomes a political activist. This leads to him being barred from teaching. He provides many examples of what the blacks are required to do in order to comply with the Apartheid segregation laws.
Here is an example of the author’s writing style:
‘The Black man must enter the white man’s house through the back door. The Black man does most of the dirty work…Black man cleans the streets but mustn’t walk freely on the pavement;’
This book was first published in 1959.
November 5, 2022
From rags to riches of literary fame
August 5, 2024
I resonated with Mphalele’s disillusionment with religion. Like for real.
June 7, 2020
A glimpse into apartheid, Marabastad and Dompass life. A young boy hungry for anything with words on it.
June 9, 2025
Brilliant. This book brought me to tears.
February 25, 2016
Es'kia Mphahlele's story of mainly his youth, but spanning from (1924-1957) growing up first in a small village Maupaneng, with his paternal Grandmother and then on 2nd Ave. in Pretoria, where he went to live with his parents and other relatives. Each chapter is like a little story of its own and you really feel the city and It's people, and the struggles that they go through to survive, and the racial tension that they all endured. Well written and very descriptive.
November 5, 2019
My dad knew 'bra Zeke', as he called the author. He told me all about this book and all about their adventures together. It was good reading about some of them here. The writing is a bit un-exciting, but the depiction of a terrible world under apartheid is very important. We should never forget the trauma that some folk experienced in that world. This is a good book to read to remind us of our humanity and how in so many parts of the world they forget that set of values that defines humanity.
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