Johannesburg

18 January 1981

My dear E.M.

Thank you for a very pleasant & interesting meeting:

Re the things in the library: I fancy that its beginning of Black Drama in the 50's – are mentioned in the papers in the Human Sciences Research Council & are not in those in the JHB library.

The South African Year Books of –79 & –80 have articles I wrote on Black Theatre. Both articles were done hurriedly, reluctantly & briefly only because no one else would do them! Previous articles were hopeless!

I meant to tell you that I have many of your early letters to me. Sometime we should go through them together.

I have been thinking about the book of plays. I have done drama books for Maskew Miller (see pamphlet) & perhaps I can get the Via Africa manuscript back & say that it could fit into the MM drama series. I'll try to do this.

There is a need for a good book of plays now & if you can do something to indicate what Greek Drama was like we can go ahead with things. I used a condensed version of Shelley's translation of the Cyclops of Euripides. I chose this because it has humour & lots of action & is a story that could belong to the legends of any country. It is the length of a short one-act play.

Love you both.

As always,

Norah

Johannesburg

9 February 1981

Dear Professor Mphahlele,

Thank you for your letter of 16 January 1981. I and my colleague and coeditor, Richard Cornwell, are really sorry that you do not see your way open to serve on our editorial advisory board at this stage.

As regards your specific queries we can give you the categoric assurance that we will not allow the Journal to be used as ‘an ideological instrument’ by anybody. The editorial policy of the Journal will be to avoid commitment to any particular viewpoint or ideology. Furthermore, the Africa Institute as such does not hold or propagate a particular point of view, but is committed to the free exchange of ideas at the highest possible level of academic endeavour.