One of the many tragic aspects of Phaswane Mpe’s sudden death last Sunday was that he had just embarked on a dramatic new path that he was convinced would bring him fulfilment.
He had recently lost his wife, Moitswadi, and was caring for their baby daughter, Reneilwe, alone. After a series of illnesses and troubling dreams, Mpe consulted a traditional healer who told him that he had a divine vocation: the ancestors had called on him to train as a healer.
Only weeks ago, Mpe gave up a sought-after doctoral fellowship at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser) to devote himself to an apprenticeship as a healer.
We, his colleagues at Wiser, had seen a new lightness about him and a deep excitement about his new career. He also thought that it might help dislodge the writer’s block that had been frustrating his creative writing. But it was not to be. On the morning of December 12 he died at the age of 34.
Born in Polokwane, Mpe matriculated from St Bedes High in 1988. He went on to study English and African literature at Wits University, where he was awarded a master’s degree in 1996 and, the following year, a diploma in advanced study in publishing from Oxford Brookes University in Britain.
He lectured in African literature at Wits for several years and was studying for a doctorate in sexuality in post-apartheid South African literature. But it was as a novelist that Phaswane was best known.
His Welcome To Our Hillbrow was published in 2001 to general acclaim. Told in the second person, it is the first post-apartheid novel to chronicle the changes transforming the inner city. Xenophobia, HIV/Aids and witchcraft are the themes weaving in and out of the life story of the protagonist, Refentse, a young man who leaves his rural home to come to Johannesburg to study. Welcome To Our Hillbrow was one of five finalists in the Sanlam Literary Award for Fiction in 2001 and the Sunday Times Fiction Award in 2002.
Phaswane was also an accomplished poet and short-story writer. He wrote in English but translated some of his work into sePedi such as his collection of short stories, Brooding Clouds. His Ode to Bafana Bafana, written during the 1998 Soccer World Cup, is eloquent about his love of the game.
Professor Isabel Hofmeyr, head of Wits African literature department, said of him: ”Phaswane was an intellectual who cared deeply about literature and culture and was involved in all of its aspects. He studied literature, taught it to a decade-worth of students in African literature at Wits, produced numerous scholarly articles on it and wrote newspaper columns on it. A creative writer of considerable stature, he was recognised as a significant voice in the literary arena … He was an extraordinarily kind and generous-hearted person. Whether it was a student, aspiring writer, friend or colleague, Phaswane would assist them in whatever way he could and with whatever he had. Whenever one went past his office, there was always someone there whom he was trying to help.”
Mpe leaves a son, Rebone, a daughter, Reneilwe, his mother and three brothers.
Phaswane Mpe, born September 10 1970, died December 12 2004