PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON LESELINYANA LA LESOTHO AND THE EMERGENCE OF SOUTHERN SOTHO LITERATURE

Abstract

Emerging from book education some 150 years ago, the Basotho produced their first writers in the second half of the nineteenth century when Sekese, Sesenyi, Molefe and Monyoloza published their first contributions in Leselinyana la Lesotho, the journal of the P.E.M.S., which saw its first edition on 3 November 1863. These were soon to be followed by a later generation comprising Mofolo, Segoete, Motsamai and Mangoaela, most of whose works first appeared in Leselinyana in a column reserved for imaginative writing, before being reprinted in book form.