Dintšhontšho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara is a translation into Setswana of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , by the renowned South African thinker, writer and linguist Sol T. Plaatje, who was also a gifted ...stage actor. Plaatje first encountered the works of Shakespeare when he saw a performance of Hamlet as a young man; it ignited a great love in him for the works of the Elizabethan dramatist. Many years later he translated several of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana in a series called Mabolelo a ga Tsikinya-Chaka (‘The Sayings of Shakespeare’.) Dintšhontšho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara went to print five years after Plaatje’s death, in 1937, published in the Bantu (later, African) Treasury Series by the University of the Witwatersrand Press.
His translations of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana helped to pioneer and popularise a genre, the drama script, that was previously not well known in Southern Africa. It also showcased the rich range of Setswana vocabulary and served Plaatje’s aim of developing the language.
Dintšhontšho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara is a translation into Setswana of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , by the renowned South African thinker, writer and linguist Sol T. Plaatje, who was also a gifted stage actor. Plaatje first encountered the works of Shakespeare when he saw a performance of Hamlet as a young man; it ignited a great love in him for the works of the Elizabethan dramatist. Many years later he translated several of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana in a series called Mabolelo a ga Tsikinya-Chaka (‘The Sayings of Shakespeare’.) Dintšhontšho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara went to print five years after Plaatje’s death, in 1937.
His translations of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana helped to pioneer and popularise a genre, the drama script, that was previously not well known in Southern Africa. It also showcased the rich range of Setswana vocabulary and served Plaatje’s aim of developing the language.
This translation into Setswana of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, by the renowned South African writer Sol T. Plaatje, showcases the rich range of Setswana vocabulary. First published in 1937, it ...popularised the playscript genre that was previously not well known in Southern Africa.
Ramothibi woke up a vagabond that day. Not that he woke up – the poor man had not even shut one eye since going to bed the previous night. His mind had been wandering since the day he was told about ...the new land law. A very cruel law, he said.Piet told him straight in the eye that come June the twentieth, things are going to change.‘Baas,’ he said. Master. ‘You and I have known each other for many years. Why would a law change the way we have been living?’‘The law is the law, Ramothibi. If I don't apply it they'll throw me in jail,’ Piet said, and shrugged his shoulders.When Piet called him by his name he knew things had changed. From the days when they were children Piet had called him Rams. Never Ramothibi. ‘Jehova Mmabaledi!’ Ramothibi called God the saviour.Can't a friendship that began in childhood and has survived all manner of things survive this cruel law too? Ramothibi could not stop thinking how he grew up playing with Piet and how later he became the only black man in Hemel op Aarde to sit with Piet in his living room to drink coffee. There were times when Ramothibi thought that the farm was indeed heaven on earth as its Dutch name suggested.Piet had no other friends to talk to about his first love. Not even neighbouring farmers’ sons. Ramothibi was there to listen and he knew everything there was to know about the whole Botman family, from the oldest to the youngest.He had seen and heard everything. All that time there was no hint that one day a law would be passed and change everything, including relationships that are deep and strong enough to survive all tests. Perhaps the new land law was a new and unknown test.Ramothibi's ancestors’ bones lay buried on Piet's farm. At least Piet gave him the permission to visit the graves whenever he wanted to. ‘You can even perform those rituals of yours here,’ Piet said.But that was not enough; Ramothibi felt like he was about to have an umbilical cord severed and thrown to the dogs.
First published in 1916, Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa was written by one of the South Africa’s most talented early twentieth-century black leaders and journalists. Plaatje’s pioneering ...book arose out of an early African National Congress campaign to protest against the discriminatory1913 Natives Land Act. Native Life vividly narrates Plaatje’s investigative journeying into South Africa’s rural heartlands to report on the effects of the Act and his involvement in the deputation to the British imperial government. At the same time it tells the bigger story of the assault on black rights and opportunities in the newly consolidated Union of South Africa – and the resistance to it. Originally published in war-time London, but about South Africa and its place in the world, Native Life travelled far and wide, being distributed in the United States under the auspices of prominent African-American W E B Du Bois. South African editions were to follow only in the late apartheid period and beyond. The aim of this multi-authored volume is to shed new light on how and why Native Life came into being at a critical historical juncture, and to reflect on how it can be read in relation to South Africa’s heightened challenges today. Crucial areas that come under the spotlight in this collection include land, race, history, mobility, belonging, war, the press, law, literature, language, gender, politics, and the state.
First published in 1916, Native Life in South Africa was written by one of South Africa’s most talented early twentieth-century black leaders and journalists. Sol Plaatje’s pioneering book arose out ...of an early African National Congress campaign to protest against the discriminatory1913 Natives Land Act. It vividly narrates Plaatje’s investigative journeying into South Africa’s rural heartlands to report on the effects of the Act and his involvement in the deputation to the British imperial government. At the same time it tells the bigger story of the assault on black rights and opportunities in the newly consolidated Union of South Africa – and the resistance to it. Originally published in war-time London, but about South Africa and its place in the world, Native Life travelled far and wide, being distributed in the United States under the auspices of prominent African-American W E B Du Bois. South African editions were to follow only in the late apartheid period and beyond. The aim of this multi-authored volume is to shed new light on how and why Native Life came into being at a critical historical juncture, and to reflect on how it can be read in relation to South Africa’s heightened challenges today.
