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William “Bloke” Modisane
August 28, 1923 – March 1, 1986
William “Bloke” Modisane was born on August 28, 1923. He grew up in Sophiatown, a multiracial suburb in
Johannesburg. His father was murdered, and his sister died from malnutrition at a very young age. His mother
resorted to running a shebeen in order to provide the family with means to live. Modisane described his situation:
My mother accepted her life, and I suppose, so did the other shebeen queens; they chose this life and
accommodated the hazards. My mother wanted a better life for her children, a kind of insurance against poverty
by trying to give me a prestige profession, and if necessary would go to jail whilst doing it. (Modisane, Blame
Me on History )
Modisane worked for a while at Vanguard bookshop, which was owned by a former trade unionist. He later joined
Drum, at the time when the magazine was known for investigative journalism that exposed horrific South African
prison and farm conditions. He was part of a team of writers that included Henry Nxumalo, Can Themba, Es’kia
Mphahlele and Lewis Nkosi, all skilled literary writers. He also worked as a jazz critic for the Golden City Post, the
Johannesburg weekly tabloid (Drum's sister publication). It was from the Leslie Charteris thriller novels featuring
the Saint that he got his nickname “Bloke”. While working for Drum he used his position to advance the objectives
of the non-racial Union of South Africa Artists and the Arts Federation.
His short stories, The Dignity of Begging, The Fighter who wore Skirts and The Respectable Pickpocket, were
published by Drum. They featured a self-taught intellectual facing powerlessness and alienation in the face of
government repression. Modisane was part of the African Theatre Workshop, and played Shark in the first
production of Athol Fugard's play, No-Good Friday. Fugard said, “The journalist Benjie Pogrund was the best man
at my wedding and he took me to Sophiatown and I met this incredible galaxy of young writers, musicians and
actors, Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Lewis Nkosi. Sophiatown was already under threat. It was bulldozed and
turned into Triomf, but the Church of the Resurrection is still standing, a monument that bears witness to the time.”
In 1959, Modisane left South Africa for England. There in 1963 he published Blame Me on History, similar in
several respects to Can Themba's short story Requiem for Sophiatown. The black neighborhood was destroyed in the
late 1950s. Blame Me on History was an examination of what apartheid does to the character and self-esteem of the
educated black man. The book was banned in South Africa in 1966. In exile, he worked as a writer, actor, and
broadcaster; he also starred in Jean Genet’s The Blacks at the Royal Court Theatre. He appeared, uncredited, in the
1964 movie Guns at Batasi, starring Richard Attenborough and Mia Farrow. In the 1968 action film Dark of the
Sun, Modisane had a small but memorable supporting role as Corporal Kataki, a sensitive soldier caught up in the
rage and horror of the 1960s Congo civil wars.
He died in Dortmund, West Germany in 1986 at the age of 63. He was one of South Africa’s finest writers and
intellectuals.
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