B.M. Khaketla

B.M. Khaketla (1913-2000) is a Sesotho poet, journalist, teacher and playwright.

Also known as Bennett Makalo Khaketla and B. Makalo Khaketla.

Biography

Born Bennett Makalo Khaketla in in Basutoland (today Lesotho) at Quacha's Nek, educated at Matatiele in the Union of South Africa and qualified as a teacher at Mariaziel Training College in 1932. He later also completed a BA-degree at the University of South Africa.

He began his career as a teacher at St Patrick's Anglican School in Bloemfontein in July 1933, remaining there till June 1939, going to teach at various schools in South Africa and Lesotho, eventually becoming the principal of Charterston High School in Nigel, Transvaal (1951-2). Thereafter he returned to Lesotho to teach at the Basutoland High School. While there he, his colleague Ntsu Mokhehle and two others founded the radical newspaper, Mohlabani ("The Warrior"), which he edited. In 1955 he and Mokhehle were fired from the school because of their criticism of the British rule and the colour bar, and he then turned to journalism as full time occupation and began to engage in national politics.

As a public figure, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Basutoland African Congress (later Basutoland National Congress) in 1958 and in 1960 a member of the Executive Council of Lesotho, and at the end of the year he launched the Basutoland Freedom Party (later the Marematlou Freedom Party, of which he was Secretary General). After the election of 1965, he became Privy Councillor to King Moshoeshoe II (till the start of the 1970s).

He married Ntšeliseng Ramolahloane, a graduate of Fort Hare University, in 1946, and they had three sons and two daughters. According to Lipholo Pheko (2020), when Khaketla died in 2000, he left behind a carton of unpublished manuscripts and notes that, when assembled and edited, could provide an autobiographal view of his life.

His career as writer

He was quite a prolific writer for one so involved in public affairs, publishing two novels, three plays and a poetry collection .

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

He published three Southern Sotho plays: Moshoeshoe le baruti ("Moshoeshoe and the missionaries", 1947), Tholoana tsa sethepu ("Results of polygamy", 1954) and its sequel, Bulane (1958).

Sources

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

B. Makalo Khaketla. Lesotho, 1970: An African Coup Under the Microscope University of California Press, 1972[1]

Chris Dunton. 2020. "The works of Bennett Makalo Khaketla" in The Post[2] (Accessed: 4 October, 2020)

Stellenbosch University Library catalogue. .

Go to the ESAT Bibliography

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