In the latest episode of Pagecast, Shaun de Waal chats to Siphiwo Mahala about the new edition of Bloke Modisane’s Blame Me on History
More about the book!

This week on Pagecast, Shaun de Waal is in conversation with Siphiwo Mahala about the 60th-anniversary edition of William ‘Bloke’ Modisane’s autobiography, Blame Me on History.

Pagecast offers you insider interviews with recently published authors, looking into the process of writing, exploring the narratives within and providing you with the story behind the story.

Mahala is a short story writer, novelist, playwright and literary critic. He is the author of the novel When A Man Cries (2007), which he translated into isiXhosa as Yakhal’ Indoda (2010), and the short story collection African Delights (2011). He is a Research Fellow at Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study.

William ‘Bloke’ Modisane (1923–1986) was a South African author, playwright and actor who worked on the staff of Drum magazine in the 1950s. He emigrated to Europe in 1959 and died in Dortmund, West Germany, in 1986.

Feeling an exile in the country of his birth, the talented journalist and leading black intellectual left South Africa in 1959. It was shortly after the apartheid government had bulldozed Sophiatown, the township of his childhood. His biting indictment of apartheid, Blame Me on History, was published in 1963 – and banned shortly afterwards.

Modisane offers a harrowing account of the degradation and oppression faced daily by black South Africans. His penetrating observations and insightful commentary paint a vivid picture of what it meant to be black in apartheid South Africa. At the same time, his evocative writing transports the reader back to a time when Sophiatown still teemed with life.

This 60th-anniversary edition of Modisane’s autobiography serves as an example of passionate resistance to the scourge of racial discrimination in our country, and is a reminder not to forget our recent past.

Tune in for an intriguing discussion!