John Dube - a short biography and bibliography of this KwaZulu-Natal author.

zoom John Dube

John Dube (1871-1946) was born in the Inanda district and was the author of the first historical novel in Zulu. The novel is entitled Insila kaShaka (1930) and was translated into English in 1951 as Jeqe, the Bodyservant of king Tshaka.

Dube was a founding member of the South African Native National Council (later the ANC) and in 1914 led its deputation to Britain to protest against the Native Land Act. He later resigned the presidency of the Congress. Known to his countrymen as 'Mafukuzela', Dube exercised great influence, and was moderate in his views. Dube established the newspaper  Ilanga Lase Natal in 1903.

Inspired by the American educator, Booker T. Washington, Dube excelled as educationist, politician, editor, artist and publicist, and was successful in unifying the historical vision of the African people. His democratic nature as well as statesmanship were evident in his belief that despite the oppression of the African people by the Europeans, blacks and whites would eventually be able to live together under a democratic order.

View locality map for John Dube's House, Inanda.

(Locality photographs: Zwelibanzi Ndayi)

zoom John Dube's House, Inanda

Selected Work

Two poems written in praise of John Dube by H.I.E. Dhlomo

Great son of streams and valleys African!
Mafukuzela!  thou of warrior frame;
Whose rare achievements proved the Black Man can!
You thought and taught and wrought us into fame.
Not scars of war alone adorn your brow;
For Beauty, Song and Fire of vale and hill,
Of our rich idiom - how the gods endow! -
The pages of your story wondrous, fill.
Blest leader, thou, to fight and midst the glist
Of battles fierce - great scholar, author, sage -
Find time the Muses fair to serve.  Our mist
Of ignorance you raised, Light of our age!
In pangs of birth we stood when he began;
Twas dark!  God spoke!  and there arose this man!

zoom John Dube's Grave, Inanda

(View locality map for John Dube's Grave, Inanda.)

Fuze by H.I.E. Dhlomo
(For John Langalibalele Dube)

Pray, poets of our Race play softly on
Your harps!  Lay down your shields for he is gone!
Pipe dulcet songs of praise to God upon
Your tender strings as Fuze passes on
To join immortal throngs of those who strove
With tears to serve both God and Man; who wove
A rope of golden deeds to heaven that men
Might climb and the celestial gates open.
How shall we sing him songs himself who sang
Immortal songs whose echo mountains rang?
How tell his praises with our limping rhyme
Who wrote sweet rimes upon the sands of Time?
The glory of our land - deep vales and mountains;
The pageantry of flocks gathered near fountains;
Of fragrant flowers and herbs, of worms that glow
At night while angels bring us sweet repose
From strife; amorous birds that build their nests
Mid strains of music; the ancestral guests,
Pied snakes, that speak of our reincarnation
And urge us on to fight for liberation;
Deft scenes of beauty where the weeping willows
Weep not, but sing lost harmonies; where swallows
Bring rain; where fantasies of mingled splendour
Of starry nights, sweet sounds, perfume and colour,
Of lizards, bees, blue seas, and winds all sobbing,
And waterfalls, green fields, and birds all soaring,
Combine to make this clime a Paradise,
Ah me! Alas! polluted by the guise
Of those who as they mouth of liberty
And Christian law, shape laws of slavery!....
These glories of our land in book and word
He caught and sang his people to begird
And make them boastful of their land and Race,
And wolves who sneer disdain with pride to face.
Oh weep! Mafukuzela great is dead!
The giant who pained through laborious years
To woo for Africa the place that's hers.
Weep not! for a golden circlet crowns his head!
Weep not for him.  He lives!  He speaks, is free!
This day he has ascended to the sphere
Of immortality.  The atmosphere
Of hate and colour, sorrows, calumny,
He does not breathe.  He is at rest, lives free.
Tis we must weep who suffer slavery;
Who on travail hang as upon a cross!
Who dwell amongst men who think the Cross but dross.
Oh weep!  Mafukuzela brave is dead!
Weep not!  for victory adorns his head!
A nursling in the arms of God, he sings!
Where grave thy victory?  Where death thy sting?
He now belongs to the immortal few
Who on the Tree of Time their names did hew
With blades of beauty, pain and noble deeds;
In service to their people and their needs;
Such Shaka, Aggrey, Khama, Hannibal
And many more who answered to Life's call;
His work and efforts and his name and fame,
Forever in our midst will be a flame
Inspiring us to fight for liberty,
An echo and a rod to make us free.
Oh weep!  Mafukuzela wise is dead!
Weep not! for pearls of genius alight his head!
Great Guardian of our shattered Eden fair!
The Snake of Wrong you challenged without care!
Like lovers' kisses so upon our lips
Thy name - which even Death cannot eclipse!
Corruption, hate, now stride our politics;
Where Fuze won by deeds, some climb by tricks.
He battled with clean arms of sanity,
Where now we suffer shafts of crudity;
The Ego and the shout are all today;
The Nation thirsts - while pygmies prance and play!
Of Bantu freedom - he the Morning Star!
Who kept us not afar, but led us far.
The Kings of deeds rise immortal from their bones.
Vain men of wealth shine only while they live,
But those who achieve, through ages will survive.
They doubly live who of themselves doth give.
But power mad fools lie dead while yet they live.
Genius endures.  Wealth, power and fortune, change;
The works of beauty remain passing strange;
For genius teaches that all life is one;
Works of achievement cry, Thy will be done.

Bibliography

1930. U-Shembe.
1930. Insila kaShaka.
1933. Ukuzi-phatha Kahle
1951. Jeqe, the bodyservant of king Tshaka.

- Inanda -
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