Plaatje, Sol(omon) T(shekisho)

South African novelist, journalist, and political campaigner. Plaatje is best known for Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago (1930; written c. 1920–21), the first novel in English by a black South African. In 1912 he was a founding member of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC; later the African National Congress (ANC)). He also produced works on the Setswana language, including a Setswana–English dictionary, and translations of Shakespeare into Setswana.

Plaatje moved to Mafeking (now Mafikeng), South Africa, as a court interpreter shortly before the Boer War. During the Siege of Mafeking (1899–1900) he kept a journal, which was published posthumously as The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje (1973). His book Native Life in South Africa (1916) was a scathing indictment of the Land Act of 1913, which limited African land ownership.