Phaswane Mpe (10 September 1970 – 12 December 2004) was a South African

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

. He was educated at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

, where he was a lecturer in African literature. He did his master's degree in publishing at Oxford Brookes University in 1998. His

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, '' Welcome to Our Hillbrow'', was published in 2001. A collection of short stories and poems, ''Brooding Clouds'', was published posthumously in 2008. Mpe was born in the northern city of

Polokwane Polokwane (, meaning "Sanctuary" in Northern SothoPolokwane - The Heart of the Limpopo Province ...

in Tiragalong, and moved to

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

at the age of 19 to attend university, and ended up living in the deprived inner city area of

Hillbrow Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime. In the 1970s it was an Apartheid-design ...

, a place where he later set his first novel. ''Welcome to Our Hillbrow'' was an important work as it was the first novel to deal with the changes of inner-city life in South Africa in the ten years since Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk engineered apartheid's demise. The book depicts the native black South Africans facing the challenges of poverty, unemployment, and

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

/ AIDS. The novel is striking in that the problems created by apartheid are in the background; the central problems of black South Africans are those of their own making: xenophobia, mean-spirited gossip, witchcraft, and the inability to fully love each other or themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the prevalence of the disease in South Africa, HIV and AIDS were common themes in Mpe's work. Before his death he embarked on doctorate studies on sexuality in post-apartheid South African literature with a particular focus on these two issues. Mpe died suddenly at the age of 34, at a time when he was about to begin training as a traditional healer. The cause of death was unknown. At the time of his death Mpe was teaching African literature and publishing studies in the school of literature and languages studies in the University of the Witwatersrand. His poems and short stories have been published in ''Imprint'' (1995), ''Staff Rider'' (1980). He also contributed short stories in ''Drum Magazine''. His book ''Welcome to Our Hillbrow'', and short stories in ''Brooding Clouds'' have autobiographical information.Mpe, P. 2001. Welcome To Our Hillbrow

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