African Writers of Today; 3; Ezekiel Mphahlele
- Series
- African Writers of Today
- Episode Number
- 3
- Episode
- Ezekiel Mphahlele
- Producing Organization
- National Educational Television and Radio Center
- Transcription Center, London
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/512-nz80k27d87
- NOLA Code
- AFWT
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- Description
- Episode Description
- This program takes place in an outdoor caf in Paris where the featured guest, essayist and short story writer Ezekiel Mphahlele, lives in self-imposed exile from the land of his birth, South Africa. Joining host Lewis Nkosi fellow South African writer Richard Rive. The half-hour conversation begins with a discussion of the feelings of the exiled writer Mphahlele suggests to his two colleagues that there is a certain advantage in exile, for it brings to one a broadened experience of life. But to the author the disadvantages are a heavy burden: the loneliness, the sense of being uprooted, and even, as Camus phrased it, a "yearning for lost poverty," a desire for the suffering that long ago when he was a boy in South Africa became a part of Mphahlele's nervous system. When asked whether he is bothered by a conflict between the seemingly irreconcilable elements of the European and African traditional ways of life, he answers that he has been able to absorb both into his consciousness to a great extent - the African desire to be a part of a community and the European desire to be an individualist. Concerning the state of South African literature, Mphahlele says he is "gloomy" about creative writing in such a society. As long as the battle between ruling whites and Africans persists, and as long as African literature is sucked into Black-White conflict, he feels, the writing will be "two-dimensional." "We are in two ghettos, two different streams... separate streams, and you can't get really dynamic art in this kind of society." They talk about the author's own autobiography Down Second Avenue, and about the people who have influenced his life. With a chuckle Mphahlele tells stories of his bootlegging Aunt Dora and of his grandmother "who had a charming way of talking about God, the Christian God, and talking about the African gods and the ancestors in the same breath and there was never any sense of conflict in her mind between the two." Mphahlele, in discussing the impact of the emerging African literature on the continent itself, mentions the need for developing readership within Africa and sees as a step in the right direction the establishment of some African publishing houses. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Series Description
- That Africa is a simmering continent is no surprise to anyone these days. The number of African nations which have, during the past few years, stood up to declare their independence and their desire to be counted in international trade circles and forums of political arbitration in an unprecedented phenomenon in history. And, as part of the continent's adolescence in its rapid evolution into modernity, there are the current touchy events in the east African countries of Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Kenya, and Uganda; the continued racial suppression in South Africa; and the recent wooing your of Chou En-lai. These are political situations and economic situations - and, in these areas, the American public is reasonably well informed. But a simmering continent is not all politics and it's not all economics. There is an emerging culture as well, and, in this case, a body of literature which demands to be called "African." For all of the information that comes to the United States from the African continent, so little is known about their writers. Who are they? What are their backgrounds? What are their reactions to the cultural revolution which surrounds them? For whom are they writing? Are they turning to the forms of the tribal oral traditions or are they rejecting them? How do the individual writers react to the philosophy of "Negritude?" What is the influence of current European literature and of the literature of the American Negro on their works? And what is the reciprocal influence of African novels, stories, plays and poems on the literature of these other cultures. In African Writers of Today, National Educational Television is giving US audiences an opportunity to find out about the contemporary literature of Africa and to meet some of the most significant African figures in the literary world. Devoted primarily to interviews with the writers themselves, the 6 half-hour episodes were filmed in Ghana, Nyasaland, The Cameroon Republic, Nigeria, Senegal, England, and France, the home settings of the featured personalities. African Writers of Today is a 1964 production of National Educational Television in collaboration with the Transcription Center, London. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1964-00-00
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Talk Show
- Topics
- Literature
- Race and Ethnicity
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Guest: Mphahlele, Ezekiel
Guest: Rive, Richard
Host: Nkosi, Lewis
Producer: Dor, Henry A.
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Producing Organization: Transcription Center, London
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 1833884-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
-
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
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- Citations
- Chicago: “African Writers of Today; 3; Ezekiel Mphahlele,” 1964-00-00, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed July 16, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-nz80k27d87.
- MLA: “African Writers of Today; 3; Ezekiel Mphahlele.” 1964-00-00. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. July 16, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-nz80k27d87>.
- APA: African Writers of Today; 3; Ezekiel Mphahlele. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-nz80k27d87