User:Andyisediting/sandbox

Atwell Sidwell Mopeli-Paulus (1913–1994) was a Mosotho writer from South Africa who published works in Sesotho and co-authored works in English. During the 1950s he completed several novels, novellas and the first draft of his autobiography.

He is best known internationally for his novel Blanket Boy's Moon, which was co-authored with Peter Lanham (the pen name of Cecil John Lanham Parker). This is now regarded as the first novel by an African to depict homosexuality among black men.

Life and major works
Atwell Sidwell Mopeli-Paulus is often incorrectly referred to as a 'Lesotho author' when in fact he was born and spent much of his life in South Africa, in areas confiscated following the Basuto Gun War. He did, however, maintain a strong identification with Lesotho.

The son of Sidwell Mopeli and 'Mathota Mopeli-Paulus, Mopeli-Paulus was born in 1913 in Monontsha in the then Witzieshoek Native Reserve of the Orange Free State (later known as QwaQwa). He was the direct descendent of Moshoeshoe I and would go on to inherit his father's chieftaincy in Witzieshoek.

He was educated at Edendale Teacher's College and the University of the Witwatersrand, before serving in the Second World War in Egypt, Abyssinia and Kenya with the Cape Corps.

Following the war, Mopeli-Paulus moved to Johannesburg and began working at a law firm. While there, he wrote a long poem on the sinking of the SS Mendi in the First World War. This appears to have been lost, apart from a short excerpt that was included in his later novel Blanket Boy Moon.

Mopeli-Pualus' first publication was a small colelction of Sesotho poems entitled Ho Tsamaea Ke Ho Bona (To Travel is to Learn) in 1945. These poems reflect on his experiences during the war, his family, and black consciousness.

Five years later he published his first Sesotho novel, Liretlo (Medicine Murder), and a short story Lilahloane wa batho (The Poor Lilahloane). Liretlo deals with the practice of removing body parts from living victims, which are then used to prepare medicine that was believed to strengthen the powers of those who commission the murder. Liretlo has often been misunderstood as the original text for the English language Blanket Boy Moon.

During the early 1950s, Mopeli-Paulus was sent to prison for his role in the Witzieshoek Revolt. The subject of his imprisonment is included in both Turn to the Dark and The World and the Cattle.

Mopeli-Pualus later returned to QwaQwa, taking up a teaching post and serving on the Legislative Assembly. He published a biography of Moshoeshoe I, Moshweshwe moshwaila, as well as a translation of Shakespear's Macbeth.

Blanket Boy's Moon (1953)
Blanket Boy’s Moon was an international bestseller and is the most widely read work by a Mosotho writer after the novels of Thomas Mofolo. The first United Kingdom edition had a print run of 47,000 copies alone. In the United States it appeared under the title Blanket Boy and was translated into Dutch (Dekenjongen, 1952), French (L'homme noir sous la lune, 1953), German (Blut hat mur eine farbe, 1953), Danish (Sort mands måne, 1953), Hebrew (https://search.worldcat.org/title/1352914917, 1954) and later Italian (Fuoco nero, 1960). The book was also serialised in a Swahili periodical. Several paperback editions have subsequently appeared, most recently in 1984 from David Philip Publishers in Cape Town. PLUS OTHER REFERENCES TO TRANSLATION FROM DUTTON

The authorship of Mopeli-Paulus' best known work has received considerable attention.

''Blanket Boy’s Moon is the first novel by an African to depict homosexuality among black men, and is all the more remarkable for the ambivalent way it treats the topic. It includes the suggestion that male–male sex or intimate physical contact was known in rural settings and thus was not a purely urban, modern phenomenon as often claimed.'' 407, Routledge Encyclopedia of Queer Culture

Turn to the Dark (1956)
xxx

Review here in a Marxist nespaper: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/periodicals/new-age/1956/na-2-43.pdf (page 6; left hand side)

The World and the Cattle (2008)
He continued to work on his autobiography The World and the Cattle, three excerpts from which were published in Drum magazine, including one on his time in Pretoria Central prison – an exposé that may later have caused him political embarrassment

To resolve:

SA Gazette from 1982 about a liquor license, proof of life after 1960: https://archive.gazettes.africa/archive/za/1982/za-government-gazette-dated-1982-01-22-no-7999.pdf

Macbeth trans: https://search.worldcat.org/title/122287835

Also Newspapers.com is unavailable, but seems to have results. Need to find more promo photos including Lanham.

Complete works
In addition to his published works, several unpublished texts exist in archives. These include Tongaland, a novel dated 1952, a short story At the Crossroads written after 1960, and Histori ya Kereke ya Zion Christian Church, dated 1972. (Dutton and Masiea 50, 54)