15 January 1975

Dear Dr. Mphahlele:

Upon recommendation of Dean Edward Lindell, I accept with regret your resignation as Professor of the Department of English at the University of Denver effective June 1, 1975.

On behalf of the University may I express appreciation for your unique contributions to the University, and wish you all success and happiness at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,

William H. Key

Acting Vice Chancellor

Austin

5 February 1975

Dear Zeke

As I promised, I presented your views and those of the other writers I talked to (Pieterse, Kgositsile and Serote) on the question of white South African participation, and specifically the participation of Nadine Gordimer as a featured speaker, in our Symposium.

I should explain that initially I conceived an event which was to be solely a Poetry Reading on the anniversary of Sharpeville and that the participants were to be South Africans currently in the United States – i.e. Mphahlele, Kgositsile, Pieterse, Brutus, Mtshali, Serote and Kunene. It was on that basis that I approached the writers and persuaded them to come to Austin, probably with no more than their expenses paid and with no assurance of an honorarium. This was the proposal which I submitted in a memorandum to Dr John Warfield, Chairman of the African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center, and which he approved.

Prior to traveling to Chicago for a meeting of the ASA, the African Studies Association, I discussed with my colleagues here the possibility of (a) the formation of an African Literature Association in the course of the ASA conference, (b) the possibility of inviting a conference of the to-be-formed ALA to Austin and (c) the possibility of combining this with the Sharpeville Day commemoration.

As a result of the confluence of these plans, which are now about to be realized, the original concept for Sharpeville Day slipped somewhat out of focus but remained in my own mind, and, I am sure, in the minds of those I had invited.

After some discussion, the following resolutions were adopted: