Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi, born on 1 December 1875 and died on 29 July 1945, occupies a foundational place in isiXhosa literature and in the intellectual history of South Africa. Poet, novelist, journalist, teacher, editor, translator, cultural historian, and public orator, he was much more than a writer in the narrow modern sense. He belonged to the lineage of the imbongi, the Xhosa praise poet whose task was to re…
“In those six years I learned much respecting Xhosa life, including the refinements of Xhosa language. If I had not been at Kentani for those six years, it seems to me as if I would not have been any help to my nation.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Benjamin Griffith Brawley entered the world on April 22, 1882, in Columbia, South Carolina, during a time when the South was still grappling with the aftershocks of Reconstruction and the hardening grip of Jim Crow. The second eldest of nine children born to the Reverend Edward McKnight Brawley and Margaret Saphronia Dickerson Brawley, he grew up in a household that prized education, faith, and quiet dignity amid rac…
“Literature should be not only history but prophecy, not only the record of our striving but also the mirror of our hopes and dreams. The Negro himself is the supreme challenge to American literature.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
