Vilakazi Street
| Benedict Wallet Vilakazi | |
|---|---|
in a gown
|
|
| Native name | Bambatha kaMshin |
| Born |
6 January 1906 KwaDukuza, Natal |
| Died | 26 October 1947 (aged 41) Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Cause of death | meningitis |
| Nationality | South Africa |
| Alma mater |
University of South Africa University of Witwatersrand |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Poet, linguists |
| Institutions | University of Witwatersrand |
| Thesis | 'Oral and written literature in Nguni. |
| Doctoral advisor | CM Doke |
Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (6 January 1906 – 26 October 1947) was a South African Zulu poet, novelist, and educator. In 1946, he became the first black South African to receive a Ph.D.Vilakazi Street in Soweto is named after him and it is now famous as the place where both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu once lived.
Benedict Vilakazi was born Bambatha kaMshini in 1906 at the Groutville Mission Station near KwaDukuza, Natal (now South Africa), the fifth child of Christian converts Mshini ka Makhwatha and Leah Hlongwane: Mrs Leah Hlongwane Vilakazi, the daughter of Bangile who was the sister of Queen Ngqambuza, wife to Mpande ka Cetshwayo, and also the sister of the Right Reverend J Mdelwa Hlongwane ka Mnyaziwezulu, the son of Chief Matiwane.
Vilakazi split his childhood between herding the family cattle and the local mission school until the age of 10, at which point he transferred to the St. Francis College in Mariannhill, a coeducational Roman Catholic secondary school founded by the local Trappist monastery. Here he was baptized with the name "Benedict Wallet," though at his mother's insistence he kept the family name of Vilakazi. He obtained a teaching certificate in 1923 and taught at Mariannhill and later at a seminary in Ixopo.
In 1933, Vilakazi released his first novel Nje nempela ("Really and Truly"), one of the first works of Zulu fiction to treat modern subject matter. He followed it in 1935 with the novel Noma nini as well as a poetry collection Inkondlo kaZulu, the first publication of Western-influenced Zulu poetry.
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