Literature & Ideas
Landmark
Can Themba
1924 – 1968
The finest of the Drum writers, and the voice of Sophiatown
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A Sophiatown schoolteacher who won a short-story competition and became the most admired writer on Drum — the magazine that invented modern Black South African journalism.
Can Themba was a teacher in Sophiatown who won a Drum magazine short-story competition and was offered a job on the staff, where he quickly became the most admired of all the Drum writers.
Drum in the 1950s created a Black South African journalism and literature that had not existed before, and Themba's writing on Sophiatown before its destruction is its highest point.
Drum in the 1950s created a Black South African journalism and literature that had not existed before, and Themba's writing on Sophiatown before its destruction is its highest point.
- South African History Online — Drum Magazine
- The Conversation — Journalism of Drum's heyday remains cause for celebration, 70 years later
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