Biography[edit]
Early years[edit]
Born in Natal Colony, Dhlomo was educated in local schools, before training as a teacher at Adams College.[1] He subsequently taught for some years in Johannesburg. He was very active in social affairs during the 1920s, which resulted in several articles published by him in newspapers such as Ilanga Lase Natal in Durban and Bantu World.
Politics[edit]
At the time he also became active for a body called the Bantu Dramatic Society and the ANC. In 1935 he finally left the teaching profession to join the staff of Bantu World. During this time of the 1920s and 1930s the black population in the area strove to emancipate themselves with the help of influential white liberals against the conservative white majority who held all political power. Herbert Dhlomo soon became one of the major figures of the new black elite. The catchphrase of the time was "progressive" and The African Yearly Register of the time described Dhlomo as "a young man of fine personality, very progressive in his ideas", which at this time meant that he was open towards the achievements of Western modernity.
Literary career[edit]
This Progressivism was part of Dhlomo's earlier writing and centred on Western-style education, "civilisation", moderation, anti-tribalism etc. Examples of this kind in Dhlomo's writing are The Girl who killed to Save and Ntsikana, which are in the line of Progressivist ideas and justify white policy. Native Africans were supposed to be the junior partners of the whites in politics and literature, a relationship that was supposed to develop eventually into racial equality. The literature they produced was meant for a mission press, and its aim was to keep the political situation quiet rather than to ameliorate it for the blacks.[1]
Final years[edit]
Having worked as a librarian from 1937 to 1941, he finally became assistant editor of Ilanga Lase Natal in 1943, a position that he held until his death. In addition, he was a prolific playwright and produced many popular dramas including: The Girl Who Killed To Save (1935); Shaka; The Living Dead; Cetywayo; Men and Women; Dingana; Moshoeshoe; Workers Boss Bosses; Ntsikana and Mofologi. As a poet, he often published his work first in Ilanga Lase Natal, and his best known collection, The Valley of a Thousand Hills, was produced in 1941.[1]
Literature[edit]
Literary style[edit]
He increasingly dedicated his life to writing and gradually shifted his position away from progressivism, which seemed not to progress very much, to slightly more radical political viewpoints. A certain bitterness in Dhlomo's writing sets in with the play Cetshwayo in 1936, which was probably due to a resentment of the social control exercised by the white liberals whose ‘support’ was increasingly seen as suppression or at least impediment of real social progress.[1]
Cetshwayo is a very good example of the difficulties of Dhlomo's style. The play, apart from what critics have called "subromantic diction", has long novelistic passages that make it difficult as a text for reading and nearly unplayable on the stage. A short passage from Cetshwayo illustrates the turning away from missionary (Christian) thought: in the scene, one tribal warrior has just slain a rival in a duel as a Christian convert comes along the path. The ensuing dialogue pits tribal against missionary ideas of order and illuminates Dhlomo's radicalisation and his bitter break with the Missionary environment that formed him.[1]
Legacy[edit]
As Dhlomo died after a long illness in 1956, his literary oeuvre was already considerable: dozens of plays and short stories, and over one hundred poems complement his regular editorial and political work. Nearly half of his known work, however, has been lost, due to writer's relatively long obscurity amongst other African writers better known today. Dhlomo was nevertheless a key figure among the early generation of writers, including Sol Plaatje and Thomas Mofolo, who established a literary tradition for the more recent generation(s) to build on.