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UFS mourns alumnus and literary giant Dr KPD Maphalla

08 April 2021 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo UFS Photo Archive

The late Dr Maphalla with former UFS Chancellor Dr Franklin Sonn — Dr KPD Maphalla with former UFS Chancellor, Dr Franklin Sonn, during the graduations in April 2007.

The University of the Free State is sad to learn of the passing of alumnus and award-winning Sesotho literary giant, Dr KPD Maphalla.

The literary works of Dr Khotso Pieter David Maphalla, like many other African writers and artists, were influenced and characterised by his own era of powerful forms of oppression and exclusion from dominant literary discourses. In his own right and through his writings of poetry, novels, short stories, and kodiamalla (dirge), he articulated a deliberate political and social protest and pushed for a place for African languages in literature at the height of apartheid.

Ground-breaking novel

“He entered the professional scene with his ground-breaking novel, Kabelwamanong, in 1982 at the age of 27. His career actually started in 1971 while he was still at school. Since his first novel, he has produced at least two books annually, covering the genres of poetry, novels, dramas, and short stories. As a dramatist, Dr Maphalla has written a number of excellent and educative radio dramas for the then Radio Sesotho (now Lesedi FM),” said his long-time friend and Head: African Languages at the University of the Free State, Dr Nyefolo Malete.

Honorary degree

“It was for this writing prowess that he received recognition from the UFS when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Literature by the Department of African Languages during a momentous ceremony on the Qwaqwa Campus in 2007,” added Dr Malete.

Dr Malete also revealed that, despite losing the use of his right hand after suffering a stroke following a car accident in the late 1990s, Dr Maphalla continued writing using his left hand. “He was adamant that, what he referred to as his ‘supposed disability’, would not deter his passion for writing.”

Scholarly studies

Dr Maphalla’s work has also produced numerous scholarly studies by the likes of Profs Moleleki Moleleki (protest poetry), Thapelo Selepe (lament and protest poetry), and Dr Seema Seema (process of cross-cultural communication). He was a committed Qwaqwa community member, who was also instrumental in the founding of Qwaqwa Community Radio (2000) and Metjodi Writers (2006), among others. He has written more than 70 books, many of which have been prescribed texts in schools.

Some of the awards he has won include:

South African Centre for Digital Language Resource (SADiLar) Sesotho Lexicographic Unit (Sesiu sa Sesotho) Lifetime Award for outstanding literary works and for promoting Sesotho literature (2019).

The Literature Festival and the University of the Free State Award for enormous contribution to Sesotho literature by a South African writer (2019).

Lifetime Achiever Award in Literature awarded by the Department of Arts and Culture (2005).

M-Net Book Prize for Sesotho poetry (2005). The first and thus far the only Sesotho author to have received this honour.

M-Net Book Prize for best novel (1996).

De Jager-HAUM Literary Award for his volume of short stories, Mohlomong Hosane (1993).

Thomas Mofolo Trophy for Best Novel, Best Poetry, and the Overall Award (1992).

Thomas Mofolo Trophy for Best Poetry (1991).

Dr JJ Moiloa Floating Trophy for Best Sesotho Poetry Book of the Year, Kgapa tsa ka (1985).

News Archive

UFS Council unanimously approves two senior appointments

2014-11-24

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Lis Lange as Vice-Rector: Academic and Prof Sechaba Mahlomaholo as Dean: Education during its meeting on Friday 21 November 2014.

Dr Lis Lange is currently Acting Vice-Rector: Academic at the University of the Free State, where she holds a substantive position as Senior Director heading the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP). Prof Mahlomaholo is Head of the School of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology Education at the UFS.

“These are two exceptional and trusted academics with international stature and I am delighted to welcome them as part of the senior leadership of the UFS. Dr Lange’s skills set pertaining to academic management and quality assurance make her one of only a few people with similar skills in the country, while Prof Mahlomaholo is a leading expert in community-based education,” says Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS.

Dr Lange joined the UFS in 2011. Before this, she was the Executive Director (2006-2010) of the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council of Higher Education (CHE), and Acting CEO of the same organisation between August 2007 and April 2008. She has been involved in the development and implementation of science and technology and higher education policy in South Africa for a decade and a half, working in different capacities in the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Research Foundation and the Council on Higher Education. Dr Lange has served as a member of the board of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and has participated in several international initiatives on quality assurance. She is the editor of an academic journal focused on the humanities, Acta Academica.

She has undertaken research and published in the fields of history, higher education and quality assurance. Her major concern in both research and practice is the role of higher education in the development of democratic societies, based on social justice. Dr Lange studied in Argentina, Mexico and South Africa, where she obtained a PhD in South African history from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Prof Mahlomaholo is a graduate of the Universities of the North, Western Cape and Harvard University in the United States. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated Professor of Education.

Before joining the UFS, he worked at six other universities where he was Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Education (UNIN-QwaQwa), Head of Professional Education (Vista University), Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies (MEDUNSA), Professor and Director of Curriculum Development (Central University of Technology), and Research Professor (North-West University).

His research interests lie in designing strategies mounted on Bricolage, Participatory Action Research and Critical Emancipatory Research as theoretical bases. He leads the NRF-sponsored project on the creation of Sustainable Learning Environments in schools. In this Participatory Action Research project, 28 PhD and 22 MEd students participate under the guidance of 15 academics. The project has relationships with the Global Network project (St Petersburg University), the Post-Colonial Education project (West Indies University) and the Discourse, Power, Resistance project (Plymouth University and now University of London). He has served as guest editor in the following ISI-indexed, peer-reviewed and accredited journals: the South African Journal of Higher Education (2010 and 2014), the South African Journal of Education (2011), Communitas (2012), the Journal of New Generation Sciences (2012), the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa (2013) and the Journal of Education Studies (2013).

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