1. Es'kia Mphahlele was a South African writer, educationist, artist and activist celebrated as the Father of African Humanism and one of the founding figures of modern African literature.
61 Facts About Es'kia Mphahlele
1. 2.
Es'kia Mphahlele was given the name Ezekiel Mphahlele at birth but changed his name to Es'kia in 1977.
3.
Es'kia Mphahlele's journey from a childhood in the slums of Pretoria to a literary icon was an odyssey both intellectually and politically.
4.
Es'kia Mphahlele skilfully evoked the black experience under apartheid in Down Second Avenue.
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Es'kia Mphahlele is described as the "Dean of African Letters".
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Es'kia Mphahlele was the recipient of the 1998 World Economic Forum Crystal Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts and Education.
7.
Es'kia Mphahlele was born in Pretoria, in the Union of South Africa, in 1919.
8.
Es'kia Mphahlele married Rebecca Nnana Mochedibane, whose family was a victim of forced removals in Vrededorp, in 1945.
9.
Es'kia Mphahlele applied for a visa through the consulate in Nairobi, in order to visit his younger brother Bassie who was ill with throat cancer, but his application was turned down.
10.
Es'kia Mphahlele was impressed and requested to visit Rebecca in her hometown during the holidays.
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Es'kia Mphahlele's mother had fallen sick, and died at the age of 45, just before the couple got married.
12.
Es'kia Mphahlele read for her MA in Social Work at the University of Denver.
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At the age of 15, Es'kia Mphahlele began attending school regularly and enrolled at St Peters Secondary School, in Rosettenville.
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Es'kia Mphahlele received his Joint Matriculation Board Certificate from the University of South Africa in 1943.
15.
Es'kia Mphahlele's thesis was entitled "The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction".
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From 1966 to 1968, under the sponsorship of the Farfield Foundation, Es'kia Mphahlele became a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English at the University of Denver, Colorado, where he earned his PhD in Creative Writing.
17.
Es'kia Mphahlele was awarded First Prize for the best African novel by African Arts magazine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
18.
Es'kia Mphahlele obtained his Teacher's Certificate at Adams College in 1940.
19.
Es'kia Mphahlele served at Ezenzeleni Blind Institute as a teacher and a shorthand-typist from 1941 to 1945.
20.
Es'kia Mphahlele was banned from teaching anywhere in South Africa by the apartheid government.
21.
Es'kia Mphahlele's first stop was Nigeria, where he taught in a high school for 15 months, then at the University of Ibadan, in their extension programme.
22.
Es'kia Mphahlele worked in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Ibadan, travelling to various outlying districts to teach adults.
23.
Es'kia Mphahlele lectured in Sweden, France, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria.
24.
Es'kia Mphahlele believed that alternative education can pave the way for a transformative and humane educational system for all.
25.
Es'kia Mphahlele spent 20 years in exile, of which he spent four years in Nigeria with his family.
26.
Es'kia Mphahlele attended the first All-African Peoples' Conference organised by Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958.
27.
Es'kia Mphahlele moved his family to France in August 1961, their second major move.
28.
Es'kia Mphahlele was appointed as the Director of the African Program of The Congress for Cultural Freedom and went to Paris.
29.
Es'kia Mphahlele edited and contributed to Black Orpheus, the Ibadan-based literary journal.
30.
Es'kia Mphahlele toured and worked in major African cities including Kampala, Brazzaville, Yaounde, Accra, Abidjan, Freetown and Dakar.
31.
Es'kia Mphahlele attended seminars connected with work in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, West Germany, Italy, and the US.
32.
Es'kia Mphahlele went on to set up an Mbari Centre in Enugu, Nigeria, under the directorship of John Enekwe.
33.
Es'kia Mphahlele had only planned to stay in Paris for two years, after which he would return to teaching.
34.
John Hunt, the executive director of the Congress for Cultural Freedom suggested that Es'kia Mphahlele establish a centre like the Nigerian Mbari in Nairobi.
35.
Es'kia Mphahlele arrived in Nairobi in August 1963, and December had been set for Kenya's independence.
36.
Es'kia Mphahlele mounted successful exhibitions of Ugandan artists Kyeyune and Msango, and of his own work.
37.
Es'kia Mphahlele turned down a lecturing post at the University College of Nairobi.
38.
In May 1966 Es'kia Mphahlele moved his family to Colorado, where he was joining the University of Denver's English Department.
39.
Es'kia Mphahlele was granted a tuition waiver by the university for the course work he had to do before he could be admitted for the PhD dissertation.
40.
Es'kia Mphahlele paid for the Afrikan Literature and Freshman Composition himself.
41.
Es'kia Mphahlele spent his time in Philadelphia teaching, writing and never stopped thinking about going back home to South Africa.
42.
Es'kia Mphahlele recalled how since their days in Denver, he and Rebecca had longed to be in Africa again, and it had to be South Africa.
43.
Es'kia Mphahlele recalled always looking for any old scrap of paper to read.
44.
Es'kia Mphahlele further recalled a small one-room tin shack the then municipality called a "reading room", on the western edge of Marbastad.
45.
Es'kia Mphahlele remembered it being stacked with dilapidated books and journals, junked by some bored ladies in the suburbs.
46.
Es'kia Mphahlele dug out of the pile Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, and went through the whole lot like a termite, elated by the sense of discovery, recognition of the printed word and by the mere practice of the skill of reading.
47.
Es'kia Mphahlele enjoyed a combination of Cervantes' Don Quixote and Sancho Panza together with Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton.
48.
Es'kia Mphahlele would read the subtitles aloud to his friends who could not read well, amid the yells and foot stamping and bouncing on chairs to the rhythm of the action.
49.
Es'kia Mphahlele's second novel, The Wanderers, was a story chronicling the experience of exiles in Africa.
50.
The first comprehensive collection of his critical writing was published under the title ES'KIA in 2002, the same year that the Es'kia Mphahlele Institute was founded.
51.
Es'kia Mphahlele had been invited by the Black Studies Institute in Johannesburg to read a paper at its inaugural conference.
52.
Es'kia Mphahlele returned to Philadelphia on 27 July 1976, after three stimulating weeks in South Africa.
53.
Es'kia Mphahlele believed there were armed with what was necessary to contribute towards building South Africa.
54.
Es'kia Mphahlele was certain that the social work and education knowledge and experience through their qualifications could be rewarding if they were part of a cultural matrix, and promoted the extension of culture, the growth of the people.
55.
Es'kia Mphahlele waited for six months for the then University of the North to inform him whether he would get the post of English professor which was still vacant.
56.
Es'kia Mphahlele founded the Council for Black Education and Research, an independent project for alternative education involving young adults.
57.
Es'kia Mphahlele founded the department of African literature at Wits University in 1983, a significant event in the evolution of literature teaching in South Africa at the time.
58.
Es'kia Mphahlele was permitted to honour an invitation from the then Institute for Study of English in Africa at Rhodes University.
59.
Es'kia Mphahlele continued visiting other universities as a visiting professor teaching mostly African Literature.
60.
Es'kia Mphahlele spent two months at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education teaching a module on secondary-school education in South Africa.
61.
The Es'kia Mphahlele Institute is named after him, honouring his life, teachings and philosophies.