Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje's place in South African history is secure. ‘One of the greatest of all South Africans, the equal at least of Mandela’, who termed him ‘that giant among African men of letters’, Plaatje helped to shape the black press. Perhaps his ‘greatest achievement … was as a journalist’. This is evident in Native Life in South Africa that, as today's journalists observe, began as ‘a little book’ but left ‘a giant legacy’. It is a ‘remarkable narrative of lucid prose, vivid imagery and eyewitness reporting’; his ‘greatest work’, which ‘should be compulsory reading for all South Africans [and] translated into all South African languages’.

Native Life has endured although today few besides historians or literary scholars remember his reporting. Yet we can appreciate his journalism in the book. Plaatje included many extracts from the press and draws on his own and others’ reporting for argument, evidence and flair. Native Life is inseparable from his journalism, its style and content owing much to the press world, though ironically its writing coincided with the effective end of his primary press career. Plaatje's archive of letters, press articles and books provides scholars with more insights than did most other journalists of the day and reveal him as a canny investigative reporter and editor.

Writing the history of the press and of book and print cultures in Africa proceeds apace, and at last places African newspapers and books within their own context. A book is ‘rehearsed in newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, letters’; so it was with Native Life, which – if not included in a recent list of books shaping empire – contributed to an open ‘imperial commons’ by its ironic, satirical pitch, simultaneously pro-Empire and subversive of white supremacy. Where does Plaatje's magnum opus fit? Is it a journalist's book or a book of journalism? It is much more. It conveyed his journalistic experience and skills over two decades, to which he added deep reflection on his long political involvement, extended British stay, and literary/linguistic acumen.

Plaatje could achieve all this because he was a courageous, forthright intellectual helping his people and others to understand their repression. Native Life contains much sober argument, well weighted with biting sarcasm designed to influence public opinion.