Thomas Mofolo was born in Lesotho in 1876. He is considered to be one of the greatest of the African authors who flourished during the early 20th century. He wrote in Sesotho for the Morija mission, and it was with Chaka, his third novel after Moeti oa Bochabela (The Traveller to the East [1907]) and Pitseng (1910), that Mofolo established himself as author, thus making an early African contribution to modern world literature. In 1910 Mofolo gave up writing and left for South Africa. He was a labour agent for the gold mines of Transvaal and the plantations of Natal. During the late 1920s he bought a store in Lesotho and in 1937 acquired a farm in South Africa, but was evicted under the Bantu Land Act. He died in Lesotho in 1948.
