Bloke of All Ages

Bloke of All Ages is an expansive reflection that offers refreshing new insights into the works of one of South Africa’s most important literary, intellectual and artistic figures, William Bloke Modisane. Born in Sophiatown, Modisane was a remarkable author, playwright and actor, and a leading member of the DRUM generation in the 1950s. The contributors trace Modisane’s intellectual and cultural journey from his early years in South Africa to his exile in the United Kingdom, East Africa, North America, Italy, the German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany. Through a comprehensive and diverse exploration of Modisane’s body of work, they offer critical literary essays on his early short stories, his autobiography Blame Me on History, his journalism as well as his writings while in exile. The volume also includes little-known and previously unpublished essays by Modisane, written during his time in exile. Bloke of All Ages highlights the relevance and resilience of Modisane’s intellectual and cultural contribution by situating his work in the broader historic context of South African creative arts.

William (Bloke) Modisane (28 August 1923 – 1 March 1986) was a South African writer, actor and journalist. Siyabonga Njica is a literary and cultural historian and the Isaac Newton Trust Fellow in Global African History at the University of Cambridge. Siphiwo Mahala is an accomplished short story writer, novelist, playwright and literary critic. He is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Johannesburg. His book Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi (2022), won the Creative Non-Fiction Award at the South African Literary Awards.  Shane Graham is Professor of English at Utah State University and author of Cultural Entanglements: Langston Hughes and the Rise of African and Caribbean Literature (2020) and South African Literature after the Truth Commission: Mapping Loss (2009).  Colette Guldimann is a lecturer in English at the University of Pretoria.  Liz Gunner is a visiting professor at the School of Languages at the University of Johannesburg. She is the author of the prize-winning Radio Soundings: South Africa and the Black Modern (2019), and co-editor of the earlier Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities (2011).  Vusumuzi R Kumalo is Senior Lecturer in History at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha.He is author of From Plough to Entrepreneurship: A History of African Entrepreneurs in Evaton 1905-1960s (2020) and South Africa’s Struggle for Independent Education (2023). Benjamin N Lawrance is Professor of History at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Amistad’s Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling (2014) amongst other books.  Bafana Radebe is a lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg.  Mark Sanders teaches African literature, literary theory, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature, law, and philosophy at New York University. He is the author of Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid (2002). His most recent book is Learning Zulu: A Secret History of Language in South Africa (2016).  Molebogeng Sebesho is a research assistant in the English Department at the University of Johannesburg.