You are cordially invited to an online launch of the book The Lion of Azania, a biography of Zephania Mothopeng written by Dr Ali Khangela Hlongwane. Click here to register. Happening on Saturday 23 October 2021 (join meeting from 14h25. Launch will start at 14h30).

Prof Tom Lodge says of the book:

‘Public lives represent a formidable challenge for any biographer. In the rueful words of his widow, for Zephania Mothopeng, privacy was a foreign word. Lives lived solely for the struggle may be virtuous, but they are hard to embody as flesh and blood. Working against such odds, Ali Hlongwane has succeeded to make his hero simultaneously tragic, vulnerable, likeable and believable. Drawing support from a rich collection of memoirs, documents and letters, he has created a moving portrait of a sacrificial life. And occasionally in Hlongwane’s luminous text, we catch a glimpse of another man, a humane and gentle personality as fond of everyday sources of joy and comfort as you or me. But this is mainly the story of a warrior, a saga of a life lived for posterity with all its fulfilments and all its costs. Certainly this biography will cement Mothopeng’s place in South Africa’s national pantheon but in its empathy and affection for its subject, Ali Hlongwane’s book will find for the old lion new followers in fresh places.’

Dr Ali Khangela Hlongwane is a researcher in the History Workshop of the University of the Witwatersrand. His recent co-authored publication is Public History and Culture in South Africa: Memorialisation and Liberation Heritage Sites in Johannesburg and the Township Space (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). He is also author of two biographies of PAC figures namely The Lion of Azania: a biography and We Are Going Home Armed or Unarmed: A Biography of John Nyati Pokela (1921 – 1985) both by Skotaville Publishing, 2021.

Dr Ali Khangela Hlongwane will be in conversation with Prof Gilingwe Mayende,  Dr Joe Thloloe, Dr Mothobi Mutloatse and John Mothopeng.

The Lion of Azania - Book Cover.jpg

Book Cover