Banned autobiography on apartheid republished 60 years later

“This book is for my mother
MA-Bloke
and to the memory of my father
JOSEPH
who was killed by die Sophiatown
which they bulldozed
into the dust”

William “Bloke” Modisane, a talented journalist and leading black intellectual of his time, dedicated his autobiography, Blame me on History, to his parents. The book, a biting indictment of apartheid, was published in 1963 and banned shortly afterwards.

Now, after 60 years since publication, Jonathan Ball Publishers published a 60th-anniversary edition.

According to the publisher, Modisane felt in exile in the country of his birth and left South Africa in 1959. This was shortly after the apartheid government bulldozed Sophiatown, the township in Johannesburg where he grew up.

“Something in me died, a piece of me died, with the dying of Sophiatown,” Modisane wrote in the opening sentence.  

“My Sophiatown was a blitzed area which had suffered the political conquest, a living memorial to the vandalism of Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd; my world was falling away, Martha Maduma’s shebeen was gone. I walked through the passage; at the end of it was the door into Martha’s shebeen, but she was not there.”

“Modisane delivers a gripping narrative detailing the relentless degradation and oppression endured by black South Africans on a daily basis. Through his sharp insights and thought-provoking commentary, he vividly portrays the reality of being black in apartheid-era South Africa. Furthermore, his evocative prose effectively transports readers back to the vibrant atmosphere of Sophiatown in its prime,” according to Jonathan Bell.

“This is the essence of the Pass Law. I cannot sell my labour to the highest bidder. I cannot live in the residential are of my choice; I am committed by the colour of my skin to live in segregated ghetto or locations of slums,” Modisane writes. “This is the law. I cannot worship in the church of my choice. I cannot mix or consort in a peaceful manner or for a peaceful common purpose with the friends of my choice.”

This 60th-anniversary edition of Modisane’s autobiography stands as a testament to the passionate resistance against the blight of racial discrimination in our nation’s history. It serves as a poignant reminder for us not to overlook the painful chapters of our recent past, concludes the publisher.

* William ‘Bloke’ Modisane (1923–1986) was a South African author, playwright and actor who worked on the staff of Drum magazine in the 1950s. He emigrated to Europe in 1959 and died in Dortmund, West Germany, in 1986.

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