Excerpt | News24's Book of the Month for February is Bloke Modisane's SA classic 'Blame Me on History'

Cover of “Blame Me on History”.

William 'Broke' Modiseine's The Responsibility of History (Ad Donker) was selected as News24's Book of the Month for February. (There is no Book of the Month for December and his January.) This classic work of South African autobiography and social commentary was first published in his 1963 and was a remarkable success. The book is currently being reprinted to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Modisan he was in exile in 1959. He was a drum journalist and short story writer in his 1950s. He then became a BBC broadcaster and playwright during his exile, also increasing his work as an actor. In “Blame History,” he recalls the destruction of Sophiatown by the apartheid regime, and reflects on how he was treated as a black man by his white masters and the kind of life he led. He talks about his feelings of humiliation and anger. He was chosen to lead because of the disenfranchisement of black people under apartheid. Despite his anger, he wrote about Sophiatown with great vigor and energy, and this book must be one of the most readable and entertaining records of its time. In this excerpt, the famous first chapter of Blame Me for History, Modiseine speaks of his sadness and anger at the erasure of vibrant Sophiatown..

Book: blame it on history Written by William 'Bloke' Modisane (Ad Donker)

With the death of Sophiatown, something inside me died, a part of me died. It was the winter of 1958. The sky was a bleach-soaked, concave, cold blue veil, the blue colored through a screen of gray powder. The sun, like the moon that day, gave off more light than heat and taunted me with its promise of warmth – a fixture against the gray-blue sky – deflecting the heat and focusing it on me in my Sophiatown A mirror is just a reflection.