-- except in the confined world of Tswana language readership.
But today Plaatje is regarded as a South African literary pioneer,
as a not insignificant political actor in his time,
and as a cogent commentator on his times. He was an explorer
in a fascinating world of cultural and linguistic interaction,
who was in retrospect truly a "renaissance man".


Related Reading:

Sol T. Plaatje (ed. John Comaroff with Brian Willan & Andrew Reed),
"Mafeking Diary: a Black Man's View of a White Man's War",
Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & Cambridge Meridor Press, 1990.
(1st edn. London: Macmillan, 1973, publ. as The Boer War Diary
of Sol T. Plaatje).

Sol. T. Plaatje (ed. Tim Couzens), "Mhudi", Cape Town: Francolin, 1996;
definitive edition.

Brian Willan, "Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist, 1876-1932",
London: Heinemann, 1984.

Brian Willan (ed. & comp.), "Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings",
Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1996.



Neil Parsons is a Professor of History at the University of Botswana.
He is author of "King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen",
which details the journey of the Batswana delegation to England of 1895,