Orlando West

24 Jan 1957

Dear Miss Taylor, Would you please write me a testimonial and attach it to this letter and post it. I am hoping that something comes of it.

My wife says thanks for what you sent her for Xmas. Thanks also for the book which is next on my list for reading.

You enquired about the late Henry Nxumalo: There is a fund for him, to which you may contribute – addressed to the Editor, Golden City Post, 176 Main St, Johannesburg. Make out the cheque to Golden City Post, and explain the purpose in a covering note. It will be a magnanimous thing for his wife & children. I read with deep interest and appreciation what James Brown wrote in the Sunday Times about Nxumalo. Best wishes from Rebecca and I.

Yours very sincerely,

Ezekiel

Sobantu

26 February 1957

Dear Jenny [Stein],

Still annoyed we didn't come to the party? But of course you wouldn't be – I'm never the soul of any party! I guess Sylvester told you Rebecca was impossibly ill. I think all continuous ailments in the Mphahlele family are mostly psychological, even when they affect the body – financial worry, bitterness and all that. But please don't ever think you and your family are at any time the focus for such bitterness. You are too humane for that, bless you.

The heat here is paralysing. But I like it that way. I can lap up handfuls of it anywhere. Tell Syl he must never again even suggest he is going to postpone a man's holiday for the sake of one whim like that of sending Can to Cape Town. We all know what a holiday he will be having there, with a spot of work inbetween times.

I know you will be interested to hear about the distinction I got in the M.A. Many people keep asking me – aloud and tacitly: why all this study and collecting of academic honours? The reason is simply that I'm black and the determination seized me when, at the age of 14, I found myself only then in Std II and quite illiterate – had been looking after cattle and goats at the will of a brutal father. Behind all this – imagine such life, poverty crawling up to the roots of your hair etc. There you have the reason.