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13 March 2018 Photo Edwin Mthimkhulu
Solomon Mahlangu inspires UFS alumnus first Sesotho book
Ace Moloi questions and delves into the concept of freedomin Tholwana Tsa Tokoloho
Tholwana Tsa Tokoloho is the title of Ace Moloi’s anthology of short stories and the name of one of the 14 stories in the book. The anthology is the first book in Sesotho published by the three-time author.

On Friday, 16 March 2018, Tholwana Tsa Tokoloho, an Art Fusion Literature product, will make its debut public appearance during a public reading at the University of the Free State’s Equitas Auditorium at 17:30.

Moloi’s first literary offering was In Her Fall Rose A Nation which was published in 2013 during his final-year as a Communication Science student at the university. In 2016, Moloi published Holding My Breath, which was praised widely for stirring emotions in readers who related to the heart-wrenching narrative of losing a mother. It was only this year that the author managed to achieve his teenage goal of establishing himself as a vernacular author.

Solomon Mahlangu, an African National Congress freedom fighter and Umkhonto we Sizwe militant who was convicted of murder and hanged in 1979, was the inspiration behind the anthology. Mahlangu inspired the Tholwana Tsa Tokoloho story, which is the story of the selflessness of a captured guerrilla hero in the face of police torture and his eventual death by hanging. It represents Mahlangu and those who suffered during the struggle for liberation. 

“My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom,” are the supposed last words uttered by Mahlangu that inspired the book’s title. Tholwana Tsa Tokoloho means “the fruits of freedom” in Sesotho. For Moloi, writing in the vernacular symbolises the fruits of freedom. “I’m trying to write in a revolutionary spirit, in Sesotho, because we haven’t done that. We have not seriously interrogated political concepts in Sesotho or in any native language,” he said.

Graduate unemployment, violent crime, and sports are some of the other topics tackled in the book. These act as a catalyst for debates over the evidence of ‘the fruits of freedom’ in post-1994 South Africa. 

News Archive

New building for Centre for Financial Planning Law
2012-04-23

 

A graphic illustration of the new building for the Centre for Financial Planning Law.
19 April 2012

 

During a recent tree planting ceremony, the Centre for Financial Planning Law in the Faculty of Law officially handed over the site for a new building for the centre. The building should be complete by the end of 2012.

The Centre for Financial Planning Law’s present premises has become too small for the needs of the centre, thus a decision was taken to build a new building.

The centre, which was opened in 2001 with three staff members, grew during the past 11 years to a centre with 13 permanent staff members. Some 1 300 students – 120 undergraduate and 1 200 postgraduate students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law and the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law respectively – are enrolled at the centre. Undergraduate students attend weekly contact sessions while the postgraduate students all study electronically through distance education.

According to Mr Rudolf Bitzer of Bitzer Design Studio, one of the two architecture firms involved in the development of the building, the new building was planned in order to to make provision for future extensions. “The opportunity for the centre to function independently was important from the beginning and facilities had to be positioned in such a way that the lecture hall and committee room could be hired out commercially when lectures were not being presented.

“The building consists of a large reception venue, which gives access to a lecture hall (which can be subdivided), a committee room, public amenities and a reception counter. The centre will present about ten lectures annually in its own building and the lecture hall can accommodate 80 students. Exams will also be written in the venue,” said Mr Bitzer.

The usable inside area of the building totals 827 square metres.

The staff function in their own section of the building, with the offices arranged around a courtyard. Security access makes it a secure environment. In addition, staff have access to a staff room with a service hatch to the reception room, reception counter, personal assistant’s office, nine individual offices and a large open plan office, a storeroom, a cleaners’ room and facilities for staff.

“With the design, an attempt was made to make the building stand comfortably in the landscape without disappearing into the natural landscape. It is an unpretentious building, which seeks to provide well articulated architecture,” said Mr Bitzer.

The architecture firms involved are Bitzer Design Studio and Roodt Architects.

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