Thomas Mofolo is the most important African writer of the first quarter of the twentieth century. He still ranks with African Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, and Najib Mafuz, and with others who are equally famous such as S. E. K. Mqhayi, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, André P. Brink, and Breyten Breytenbach. His fame is largely attributable to the last of his three published works, Chaka (1925), a narrative written in Sesotho and based on the life of the Zulu king Shaka, who lived from 1788 to 1828. Early translation into English and French spread Mofolo's fame as much as it did that of the Zulu king (although not at home) and led to a flood of dramatic works on the historical Shaka by Francophone writers in West Africa.

Thomas Mokopu Mofolo was born 22 December 1876 in Khojane, near Mafeteng, in western Basutoland, to Abner and Aleta Mofolo. At...