UHURU PHALAFALA

Uhuru Phalafala’s wide-ranging book reveals the foundational influence of Kgositsile’s mother and grandmother on his craft and unveils the importance of the oral/aural traditions, indigenous knowledge systems, and cosmologies he carried with him into and after exile. It illuminates a southern African modernity that was strongly gendered and deployed in anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and civil rights struggles. Using the original concept of ‘elsewhere’, the author maps the sources of Kgositsile’s transformative verse, which in turn generated ‘poetics of possibility’ for his contemporaries in the Black Arts and Black Power Movements and beyond.

The amount of tears today as I was re-called to these archival gems. They remembered me. I always sadly thought there are no surviving pics of Kgositsile and I. I was always so absolutely focused on our conversations that I never prioritised documenting our time together… but the wise ones were dreaming us! I can’t believe this is me at 28/29/30, honouring, being honoured, having the entire trajectory of my life be redirected and mapped towards my destiny… this man shaped this current path; he taught me and edified me with enduring trust. The ancestors dreamed a big dream here, and we bow 🙇🏾‍♀️ I needed to see this today as the dream continues to speak through me, as I deepen rituals and practices of deeply communing and listening, and as I continue to trustfully surrender to what has always already been there.
so much. so, so much
re leboga modimo le badimo
Uhuru Phalafala

Read an excerpt from the book here.