H. I. E. Dhlomo (1903-1956), one of the most outstanding African intellectuals of the New African Movement, engaged the notion of the construction of modernity in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth-century.

The movement’s stellar roster included the following: Solomon T. Plaatje (1879-1932), Charlotte Manye Maxeke (1874-1939), Thomas Mofolo (1876-1948), R. V. Selope Thema (1886-1955), Clement Martyn Doke (1893-1980), Peter Abrahams (1918- ), Harold Cressy (1889-1916), Notsizi Mgqwetho (C.1885-C.1940), Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Nadine Gordimer (1924- ), F. Z.S. Peregrino (1851-1919), Ezekiel Mphahlele (1919- ).

The founding text of the New African Movement was Pixley ka Isaka Seme's(1880-1951) manifesto "Regeneration of Africa" (1903-4) which was written inNew York City in the aftermath of the English-Boer War (1899-1902).

Herbert Isaac Ezra Dhlomo, like all other New African intellectuals active in the wake of the advent of Xhosa Intellectuals of the 1880s, was preoccupied with how to transform European modernity, which was informed by Christianity, modern education, European civilization, in South Africa into New African modernity within the powerful political currents generated by Ethiopianism, Pan-Africanism, the African National Congress, New African Nationalism, and Shembe-ism.

Dhlomo's distinct contribution to the New African Movement was the making of New African modernism through his work as a playwright, short-story writer, essayist, poet, violinist and journalist.

This book mainly considers his influence in the construction of New African modernity using the articles he wrote for the predominan Umteteli wa Bantu newspaper in the 1920s and 1930s and Ilanga lase Natal newspaper in the 1940s and 1950s.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NTONGELA MASILELA is Professor of English and World Literature, Professor of Creative Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He is Director of the H. I. E. Dhlomo Center for African Intellectual History at Pitzer College. He is also Adjunct Professor of African American Studies at the University of California in Irvine. He studied at UCLA, Technical University of Berlin, and at Polish Academy of Film Art in Lodz. He has taught at the University of Nairobi, UCLA, University of Lodz, and at the Summer Dance Academy in Arezzo, Italy.

CATEGORY
Intellectual History/AFRICA & AFRICAN AMERICAN