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Es'kia Mphahlele (Ezekiel Es'kia Mphahlele)[eskE´u umfulA´lA] Pronunciation Key, 1919–, South African writer. He began his career as a writer for Drum magazine after World War II and published his first stories, Man Must Live, in 1947. He emigrated from South Africa in 1957, when the government banned him because of his stand against apartheid. He received a Ph.D. from the Univ. of Denver (1968) and left a full professorship at the Univ. of Pennsylvania to return to South Africa in 1977. In 1978 he became a professor at Witwatersrand Univ. His Down Second Avenue (1959) is a moving, vivid account of growing up in South Africa. Of his novels, The Wanderers (1969) was banned for many years in South Africa. Another novel, Chirundu (1980), takes place in an imaginary African country.
See his autobiography Afrika My Music (1984) and selected letters (1984); studies by U. Barnett (1976) and R. Obee (1999).
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