Chaka: Heinemann African Writers Series

Two awards have been named in honour of Thomas Mofolo. In 1976, Nadine Gordimer created the Mofolo-Plomer Prize, celebrating the literary achievements of Mofolo and South African writer, William Plomer. The Thomas Mofolo Prize for Outstanding Sesotho Fiction was also launched in 2019.

Thomas Mofolo was born in 1876 in Khojane, Basutoland (modern-day Lesotho) and was the first novelist to write in the Sesotho language. He was educated by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society and worked at Sesuto Book Depot as a manuscript reader, proofreader, and secretary. It was while working there that he wrote his first novel, The Traveler of the East (1907), launching one of the earliest literary movements in Africa. His third and most famous novel, Chaka (1925), was considered by other missionaries to lack a strong enough condemnation of pagan customs. As such, its publication was delayed for over fifteen years. Disappointed by its reception, Mofolo left for South Africa in 1910 and abandoned writing. After years of struggling financially, he purchased a farm in 1937 but was victim to the passing of the Bantu Land Act which restricted farm ownership to white citizens. Mofolo died in 1948. Translated from Sesotho by Daniel P. Kunene.Daniel P. Kunene was a literary scholar, translator and writer born in 1923 in Edenville, South Africa. He gained a PhD in 1961 from the University of Cape Town before seeking political asylum in the USA. He taught African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 33 years. He died in 2016.

Chaka is a beautifully dark and twisted take on the true life story of the Zulu King... built around one of the most enigmatic and memorable literary figures you'd ever encounter.