Brian Willan stars at Human and Social Science Awards evening
More about the book!

Brian Willan’s Sol Plaatje: A Life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje 1876–1932 was named joint winner of the Best Biography Award at the Human and Social Science Awards last week.

The 5th annual HSS Awards, honouring contributions in the categories Book, Creative Collection and Digital Contribution, were held at The Square in Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg.

Leading HSS scholars and academics congregated to honour and celebrate outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences by academics, curators and artists based at participating South African universities.

Jacana Media says:

‘Congratulations to our author, Brian Willan, for winning the award for Best Non-Fiction Biography for his wonderful book Sol Plaatje: A life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje 1876-1932.

‘Thank you to the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences for hosting this award, which recognises those intellectual–creative scholars whose contributions often go unnoticed.’

‘This book delivered on its promise. Brian Willan’s second biography of Sol Plaatje (the first one was published in 1984) offers an updated and invigorated history that doesn’t just focus on Plaatje as an African Nationalist (the first book), but also brings to the fore Plaatje’s multiple roles as court interpreter, journalist, editor, husband, father, poet …’ – anonymous reviewer