Daniel Kunene

Daniel Pule Kunene (1923-2016) was a South African literary scholar, translator and writer. He was Emeritus Professor of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Life

Daniel Kunene was born on April 13, 1923 in Edenville, South Africa. He gained a BA in 1949 from the University of South Africa, an MA in 1951 from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in 1961 from the University of Cape Town. He married Selina Sekhuthe in 1953. In 1963 he and his family left South Africa, finding political asylum in the United States after a stay in London.

Kunene taught at UW Madison for 33 years. He also taught at the University of Cape Town, the University of London, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.

In summer 1993 Kunene toured South Africa, his first chance to return after three decades of exile. His wife Selina died in October 1993. In 2003 he married again, to Marci Ellis. He died on May 27, 2016.

Works

• Dithoko, dithothokiso le dithoholetso tsa sesotho. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1966.
• The works of Thomas Mofolo : summaries and critiques : a forerunner of A digest of African vernacular literatures, 1967
• The beginning of South African vernacular literature: A historical study.
• Heroic poetry of the Basotho, 1971
• Pirates have become our kings: poems. Nairobi, Kenya : East African Pub. House, 1978.
• The ideophone in Southern Sotho, Berlin: Reimer, 1978.
• (tr.) Chaka by Thomas Mofolo. 1980.
• A seed must seem to die, 1981
• From the pit of Hell to the spring of life, 1984
• Thomas Mofolo and the emergence of written Sesotho prose, 1989
• The Zulu novels of C.L.S. Nyembezi : a critical appraisal. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.