A work of impassioned political propaganda, exposing the plight of black South Africans under the whites-only government'.

Sol Plaatje’sNative Life in South Africa, originally published in 1916, was first and foremost a response to the landmark Natives’ Land Act of 1913. It arose out of the protest campaign of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) founded in 1912, renamed in 1923 the African National Congress (ANC), Africa’s oldest liberation movement and, since 1994, South Africa’s ruling party.

But the book was far more than a robust rejoinder to a significant piece of legislation, and it was far from being an ANC publication.Native Lifewas Plaatje’s distinctive handiwork, independent and individualistic, casting a wide net...