William Plomer – much ahead of his time!!

By Ishmael Mzwandile Soqaga

When one begins to reminisce about the past racial situation that inhumanely defined members of the human race as unequal, it becomes difficult for the victims of racial trauma to forget.  However, as usual the world can be fortunate enough to be blessed by some people who love peace and harmony.  The world has changed now because of such people.  Their profound efforts to speak about things that are daunting to the human existence are very sublime.  Imagine fascist Nazis leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini who threatened the world and caused such terrible atrocities against other racial groups (The Holocaust and Italy invasion of Ethiopia).  Furthermore, another disturbing thing that the world has witnessed wais the racial philosophy which white Americans used to believe in against black people in America.

Similarly, in South Africa acts of racial absurdity protracted for aeons – specifically some writers are mainly concerned about how blacks were racially treated by white authority in South Africa.   Unfortunately such written materials which they produce eschew the fact to evince a kosher and clear tangible history of South African past racial history.

Moreover, such writers will quickly select large part of history of racism in South Africa with a purpose to illustrate what actually transpired throughout the period of racism in South Africa.  It is a fact that majority of people who suffers lot of racial embarrassment and racial atrocity were black people.  Notwithstanding, it is necessary to know that not all white people believe in the unfounded racial philosophy of hoity-hoity of white race over other races (Blacks).  Essentially it is quite important for writers to think careful when they desire to write about anything that pertain racism in South Africa.  Writers should avoid behaving like certain pastors in the church who only quotes the Bible were it only apposite to their feelings.

The imperative issue here is that people like Mr William Plomer had played a very pivotal role in expressing discontent about racial situation in South Africa.  The stupendous and a well gifted literary figure, Plomer never hesitated to state his opinions unequivocal against racial injustice in South Africa.  Plomer in his poems engages the reader in intelligent thought about the potential of poetry to capture and explore a consciousness of social obligation.  

Among his earliest literary endeavours were co-operations with the editor of the Zulu-English newspaper Ilange Lase Natali (The Natal Sun), the writer, educationist and politician John L. Dube.  The issue involved the possibility of a national literature and, under the pseudonym P. Q. R., Plomer published among other pieces on the race theme ‘The Death of a Zulu’, an intimate, lyrical account of a Zulu women mourning the loss of her husband.  The point of the exercise was apparent to Es’skia Mphahlele when he remarked on Plomer’s depiction of the African person as a credible human being.  (Southern African Literatures, Michael Chapman page 182-183)

William Plomer was a South African poet and novelist, and he founded the magazine Voorslag (‘Whiplash’) with Roy Campbell in 1926.  He eventually settled in England and became the principal reader for the publishers Jonathan Cape in 1937.  Turbott Wolfe (1925) his first novel, was remarkable for its angry denunciations of racism.  The novel caused a scandal because it touched upon miscegenation and dared to criticize the supposed benevolence of whites toward blacks, even casting some white characters in the role of villains. I Speak of Africa (1927), a collection of short stories, exacerbated his reputation.

The life of William Plomer epitomized an elegant none myopic white writer who appreciates equality of all people before the law.  He remains one of the few extraordinary white writer who display awesome intelligent in the literary world.  In particular it is very healthy and interesting to know that Plomer lived in the time when apartheid was not official and he courageously wary about the unscrupulous racial demeanour of minority of white people.  Sensibly writers should invariably display a clear consciousness in providing a true history of racism in South Africa.  Inevitable the life and times of William Plomer reflects an authentic tale of South African none-racial society.  As issues of racism in South Africa may arise sporadically in post apartheid, is quite necessary for the people of South Africa and the world to draw a life lesson from the remarkable white writer like Plomer who valiantly dismissed the unfounded philosophy of racism in South Africa without fear or favour. 

Works

• 1925. Turbott Wolfe (novel)
• 1927. Notes for Poems. Hogarth Press, London (poetry)
• 1927. I Speak of Africa (short stories)
• 1929. The Family Tree. Hogarth, London (poetry)
• 1929. Paper Houses. Hogarth, London (short stories)
• 1931. Sado. Hogarth, London (novel)
• 1932. The Case is Altered (novel)
• 1932. The Fivefold Screen (poetry)
• 1933. The Child of Queen Victoria (short stories)
• 1933. Cecil Rhodes (biography)
• 1934. The Invaders (novel)
• 1936. Visiting the Caves. Cape, London (poetry)
• 1936. Ali the Lion (biography, reissued in 1970 as The Diamond of Janina)
• 1937. William Plomer (editor): Haruko Ichikawa: A Japanese Lady in Europe. Cape, London
• 1938. Selections from the Diary of the Rev. Francis Kilvert (1870–1879)
• 1940. Selected Poems. Hogarth, London
• 1942. In a Bombed House, 1941: Elegy in Memory of Anthony Butts (poetry)
• 1943. Double Lives: An Autobiography. Cape, London.
• 1945. The Dorking Thigh and Other Satires (poetry)
• 1949. Four Countries. Cape, London (short stories)
• 1952. Museum Pieces (novel)
• 1955. A Shot in the Park (poetry, published in U.S. as Borderline Ballads)
• 1958. At Home: Memoirs. Cape, London.
• 1960. Collected Poems. Cape, London.
• 1960. A Choice of Ballads (poetry)
• 1966. Taste and Remember (poetry)
• 1975. The Autobiography of William Plomer. Cape, London (revision of Double Lives, he died before he could rework At Home)
• 1978. Electric Delights. Selected and introduced by Rupert Hart-Davis