Nontsizi Mgqwetho: The Poet of the People (1919–1929), by Thulani Mkhize

As the only known female contributor of poetry to Abantu-Batho and Umteteli wa Bantu newspapers in the 1920s, Nontsizi Mgqwetho was a trailblazer. Her poetry is a classic example of a modern poet who not only artfully traversed oral and literate cultures with ease and prowess but also immersed herself in the political and social condition of her people in search of a solution, a ford, that would lead them out of mental and eventually political subjugation. Mgqwetho enters an established black literary tradition of writing in newspapers and does so with a purpose – for meaningful engagement and social justice. Although she tackled pressing issues of the day such as colonial occupation and oppression, her major focus was on the restoration of African selfhood and preservation of life-giving African values, the loss of which she finds more tragic than the loss of land.

In this book, Thulani Mkhize shows us how Mgqwetho’s work resonates with contemporary significance on various levels. When Mgqwetho pens the poem ‘Maibuye! I Afrika! Awu!’ (Come back, Africa! Awu!), she is not calling for the return of land to Africans as the political slogan at the time embodied, but she is making a clarion call for Africans to return to their senses – their sense of self and nation that had been disrupted and corrupted by colonial forces. More than a century after penning this poem, the quest for land persists, and the condition of the African that she envisioned remains under construction.

Thulani Mkhize is the Academic Leader for Literary Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she is a Senior Lecturer in English Studies, with a special focus on African literature in historical newspapers. She is co-editor of African Literature: Beyond the Western Gaze (2024).