Annual Research Report 2020

57 ( The South African Philatelist , Aug 2021) Mr Brian Willan and Mr Sabata-Mpho Mokae, editors Sol T. Plaatje: A Life in Letters There has been an important upswing in attention with a welcome trend towards remaking or revising the canon of important figures from the South African past. This has included edited collections of the works of prominent individuals, and notable among these have been early-twentieth century black African politicians and writers. Historical Publications Southern Africa (renamed from its previous moniker, the Van Riebeeck Society) has published four edited col- lections of the writings of such individuals since 2008, including Isaac Williams Wauchope, Richard Victor Solope Thema, and A.B. Xuma. A Life in Letters is a collection of Solomon T. Plaatje’s corre- spondence, the fourth such volume in over a decade. The book includes 260 letters, written from 1896 to 1932. Most are in English, but some are in Setswana and Dutch/Afrikaans, and a few are in German. Although a number of the letters are from the collections of the Cullen Library at the University of the Witwatersrand, the reviewer counted 27 different collections across three continents. The book is an excellent resource not only for his- torians, but also for students and the general public who now have access to a wide range of Plaatje’s thoughts, opinions and emotions that are evident in his letters. The co-editor of this volume, Brian Willan in his Sol Plaatje: 1876–1932 (Johannesburg, 1984), states that the correspondence conveys the range of Plaatje’s talents – building and maintaining the social worlds of the Batswana in the face of increasingly racist policies and the actions of white-minority rule in the Cape Colony, Transvaal, and later, the Union of South Africa in the twentieth century. About Mr Sabata-Mpho Mokae Sabata-Mpho Mokae teaches creative writing in African languages at Sol Plaatje University. He is also a novelist and translator. He has written an accessible biography The Story of Sol T. Plaatje (2010) as well as three novels in Setswana, Ga ke Modisa (2012), Dikeledi (2014) and Moletlo wa Manong (2018). He has trans- lated two children’s books by Gcina Mhlophe from English to Setswana ( Our Story Magic to Semaka sa Dinaane and Stories of Africa to Dinaane tsa Aforika ). He has also co-edited, with Professor Brian Willan, two academic books, Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, Criticism, Celebration (2020) as well as Sol T. Plaatje: A Life in Letters (2020). In 2014 he was a writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa in the USA where he was subsequently awarded an honorary fellowship. He has won the M-NET Literary Award for Best Setswana Novel (2013), the M-NET Film Award (2013), the South African Literary Award (2011, 2019 and 2021) and the Humanities and Social Sciences Award (2020). He is also an affiliate of the Tsikinya-Chaka Centre at Wits University. A Worthy Read: ‘A Life in Letters’ Mr Sabata-Mpho Mokae