Sol T. Plaatje occupies a central position in South Africa's political and literary history. One of the most widely talented and versatile men of his generation, he was a prolific journalist and newspaper editor, one of the founders of the African National Congress, and a leader in the public affairs of the African people for much of his life. His most significant writings are Native Life in South Africa (1916), a powerful defense of African rights, published as a response to the Natives' Land Act of 1913; Mhudi: An Epic of Native Life a Hundred Years Ago (1930), the first novel in English to have been written by a black South African; and a handful of books written in Setswana (also called Sechuana), his native tongue, which did much to preserve the language's literary form and established Plaatje as one of its leading writers and translators.

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was born...