Sheds new light on Native Life appearing at a critical historical juncture, and reflects on how to read it in South Africa's heightened challenges today.
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 discriminatory 1913 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.

Janet Remmington is a publisher, researcher, and writer now affiliated to the University of York. She contributed chapters on Plaatje to Sea Narratives: Cultural responses to the sea, 1600-Present (2016) and Fighting Words: Fourteen books that shaped the postcolonial world (2017). Brian Willan is an Honorary Research Fellow at Rhodes University. He edited and introduced the Ravan Press edition of Native Life in South Africa in 1982. This was followed by a biography of Plaatje (1984) and a collection of Plaatje's writings (1997). Bhekizizwe Peterson is a Professor of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His books include Monarchs, Missionaries and African Intellectuals: African theatre and the unmaking of colonial marginality (2000), and Zulu Love Letter: A screenplay (2009).

Foreword Sol T Plaatje and the 'power of all' - Njabulo S Ndebele
Introduction Native Life in South Africa - then and now - Janet Remmington, Brian Willan and Bhekizizwe Peterson
Editions of Native Life in South Africa 1916 to the present
Looking Back: Foreword to Ravan Press edition of Native Life in South Africa - Bessie Head
What is in a name? In memory of Sol T Plaatje - Violet N Plaatje
Segopoco Sa Moshui Sol T Plaatje - James M Molebaloa
In memory of the late Sol T Plaatje - James M Molebaloa (translated by Nhlanhla Maake)
Lefatshe, nkometse - Sabata-mpho Mokae
Earth, swallow me - Sabata-mpho Mokae
Chapter 1 Native Life in South Africa: Writing, publication, reception - Brian Willan
Chapter 2 Modernist at large: The aesthetics of Native Life in South Africa - Bhekizizwe Peterson
Chapter 3 The print world of the press and Native Life in South Africa - Peter Limb
Chapter 4 Going places: Native Life in South Africa and the politics of mobility - Janet Remmington
Chapter 5 Native Life in South Africa and the world at war - Albert Grundlingh
Chapter 6 African intellectual history, black cosmopolitanism and Native Life in South Africa - Khwezi Mkhize
Chapter 7 'Native Lives' behind Native Life: Intellectual and political influences on the ANC and democratic South Africa - André Odendaal
Chapter 8 Whose past? Native Life in South Africa and historical writing - Christopher Saunders
Chapter 9 Women and society in Native Life in South Africa: Roles and ruptures - Heather Hughes
Chapter 10 African progressivism, land and law: Re-reading Native Life in South Africa - Keith Breckenridge
Chapter 11 Land and belonging: On the tomb ya ga Solomon Plaatje - Jacob Dlamini
Chapter 12 Revisiting the landscapes of Native Life - Sean O'Toole
A Contemporary Reimagining: The Road to Dikhudung - Sabata-mpho Mokae