Mayibuye, Lewis

This article discusses a key episode in both the life and career of Lewis Nkosi, the famous South African writer belonging to the Drum generation, and in the history of South African culture: the making of the film Come Back, Africa, in Johannesburg in the late 1950s. Directed by African-American Lionel Rogosin, the film was based on a script by Lewis Nkosi and Bloke Modisane, both journalists for Drum magazine, and became the first film on life in apartheid South Africa. The Drum journalists also acted in the film, with Nkosi in particular displaying great wit, intellectual virtuosity, and a New African political stance, in contrast with the liberal humanist approach of white South African writers and intellectuals, such as Alan Paton.