The Will to Die

by Can Themba

Overview

In this collection of previously banned short stories, Can Themba shines a light on the racism and systemic violence suffered by Black South Africans during apartheid in the late 1950s.

Written during Can Themba's career as an investigative journalist for South Africa's revolutionary magazine Drum, these seventeen short stories capture the atrocities of apartheid as he witnessed and experienced them first-hand.

In Themba's most famous short-story, 'The Suit', a couple living in poverty struggle to find freedom from oppression and from each other. Set in Sophiatown, the tales preludes the South African government's decision to bulldoze the homes of Black residents and make way for a white-only suburb – an event that personally devastated Can Themba and shaped the rest of his writing career.

This is the essential collection of his most impactful stories, written in defiance of the injustice he witnessed.

Selected by Donald Stuart and Roy Holland

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781803288796
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/01/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Daniel Canodoise Themba, more commonly known as Can Themba, was a teacher, writer, and activist born in Marabastad, South Africa in 1924.

He attended the University of Fort Hare where he earned his teaching diploma and a degree in English. His writing career began in Sophiatown after he won a short-story competition with the magazine Drum. Themba later joined the magazine as an investigative journalist, exposing the realities of apartheid alongside other writers such as Bloke Modisane, Ezekiel Mphahlele and Modikwe Dikobe – known together as the pioneering 'Drum Generation'. The South African government retaliated by placing a ban on his writing in 1966, prompting Themba to move to the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, where he lived out the rest of his life in exile. Themba died in 1967.