Poetry
'Mantsopa
Not translated into English
Caroline Ntseliseng Khaketla · 1963
Synopsis
A collection of poems in Sesotho, published by Oxford University Press and divided into thematic sections over eighty-eight pages. According to the entry devoted to the author, the poems, in a lyrical register, deal in particular with colonialism and the strength of mothers, and the book is dedicated to one of her children. Its content is not described in further detail, poem by poem.
Context
A study by Thato Mabolaeng Monyakane, published in 2014 in the South African Journal of African Languages, places this book among the works the author published under apartheid, between a title of 1954 and another of 1996, and reads in it the coexistence of African and Western viewpoints that the publishers of Sesotho literature sought to steer; its abstract calls it a novel, whereas bibliographic records list it as a collection of poems. Another study presents the author as the first woman to promote and develop Sesotho literature.
Who it is for
Poems in Sesotho, with no known translation; the content remains little described by the accessible sources.
Prizes and reception
One study hails its author as a pioneer, the first woman to serve and develop letters in Sesotho.