"''My creative life is the greatest thing I can give to my people, to Africa. I am determined to die writing and writing and writing. And no one … can stop, fight or destroy that. It is the soul, the heart and, the spirit. It will endure and speak truth even if I perish…I have chosen the path to serve my people by means of literature, and nothing will deflect me from this course.''"
Biography
Early years
Born in Natal Colony, Dhlomo was educated in local schools, before training as a teacher atPolitics
At the time he also became active for a body called the Bantu Dramatic Society and theLiterary career
This Progressivism was part of Dhlomo's earlier writing and centred on Western-style education, "civilisation", moderation, anti-Final years
Having worked as a librarian from 1937 to 1941, he finally became assistant editor of ''Ilanga Lase Natal'' in 1943, a position that he held until his death. In addition, he was a prolific playwright and produced many popular dramas including: ''The Girl Who Killed To Save'' (1935); ''Shaka''; ''The Living Dead''; ''Cetywayo''; ''Men and Women''; ''Dingana''; ''Moshoeshoe''; ''Workers Boss Bosses''; ''Ntsikana'' and ''Mofologi''. As a poet, he often published his work first in ''Ilanga Lase Natal'', and his best known collection, ''The Valley of a Thousand Hills'', was produced in 1941.Literature
Literary style
He increasingly dedicated his life to writing and gradually shifted his position away from progressivism, which seemed not to progress very much, to slightly more radical political viewpoints. A certain bitterness in Dhlomo's writing sets in with the play ''Cetshwayo'' in 1936, which was probably due to a resentment of the social control exercised by the white liberals whose ‘support’ was increasingly seen as suppression or at least impediment of real social progress.Keith A. P. Sandiford, ''A Black Studies Primer: Heroes and Heroines of the African Diaspora'', Hansib Publications, 2008, p. 150. ''Cetshwayo'' is a very good example of the difficulties of Dhlomo's style. The play, apart from what critics have called "subromantic diction", has long novelistic passages that make it difficult as a text for reading and nearly unplayable on the stage. A short passage from ''Cetshwayo'' illustrates the turning away from missionary (Christian) thought: in the scene, one tribal warrior has just slain a rival in a duel as a Christian convert comes along the path. The ensuing dialogue pits tribal against missionary ideas of order and illuminates Dhlomo's radicalisation and his bitter break with the Missionary environment that formed him.Keith A. P. Sandiford, ''A Black Studies Primer: Heroes and Heroines of the African Diaspora'', Hansib Publications, 2008, p. 150.Convert: What have you done?What Dhlomo otherwise attempted to produce was a "literary drama" based on the grand themes of the deeds of past heroes, rather than stage vehicles for immediate political agitation on the stage. This kind of drama Dhlomo wrote rested on the belief that "''the tragedy of a Job, an Oedipus, a Hamlet, a Joan, a Shaka, a Nongqause, is the tragedy of all countries, all times, all races''". He thus prefigured many later African writers in the 20th century, such as
Warrior: Stop that! I don’t like it! When a person asks about what he knows and sees, he sees and knows what he does not ask. He is a liar and a fraud, a spy.
Convert: I am sorry, brother. I do not fight.
Warrior: I know. Christians do not fight. It is not Christian. They cheat, ruin, feign, find fault and drag people down.
Convert: Surely you are mistaken…
Warrior: Christian, hold your tongue! Don’t interrupt me! Look after yourself. You are nearer death than you think!
Convert: You w-won’t k-kill me, b-brother!
Warrior: We kill Christians! A Christian is only good dead! Living, he is either useful and honest or not Christian. (…)
Poetry
Dhlomo also wrote poems – mostly published by his brother R. R. R. Dhlomo – such as ''Fired – Lines on an African Intellectual being sacked by White Liberals for his independent ideas''. Dhlomo's personal grievance coincided with a general trend, strengthened by the nationalistic ideas held by the ANC of the time. The general trend from tutelage to protest, to resistance against political oppression of blacks has its roots in that era and continues to the very day. One of Dhlomo's patriotic and protest poems is ''On Munro Bridge, Johannesburg'', from which the following section was taken to represent Dhlomo's concerns at the time:(…) Jerusalem can boast no better sight,
For here the veld with glorious scenes is dight.
O sweet miniature Edens of the north!
O glorious homes! Is gold but all your worth?
Shall Belial rule forever in your towers,
Polluting all this beauty, all your hours?
How can you rest content so near the hells
Of poverty where Moloch fiercely dwells;
Where children die of hunger and neglect.
While city Fathers boast suburbs select;
Where minds diseased and dead to Love make gains
Through drunkards, widows, waifs and worker’s pains (…)
Contemporary writings
During his last years, Dhlomo wrote almost exclusively on contemporary matters, which he sought to render in a dynamic and lively form. The past now informed his writing only where it was supposed to be usable for social comment and action. This work of the 1940s actually exhibits streaks of bothLegacy
As Dhlomo died after a long illness in 1956, his literary oeuvre was already considerable: dozens of plays and short stories, and over one hundred poems complement his regular editorial and political work. Nearly half of his known work, however, has been lost, due to writer's relatively long obscurity amongst other African writers better known today. Dhlomo was nevertheless a key figure among the early generation of writers, includingSources
* *References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dhlomo, Herbert Isaac Ernest 1903 births 1956 deaths People from Umgungundlovu District Municipality Zulu people South African writers