William "Bloke" Modisane, the eldest son of Joseph and Ma-Willie Modisane, grew up in
Sophiatown, a multiracial suburb in
Johannesburg, South Africa. His father was murdered and his sister died of
malnutrition. To make ends meet, his mother ran a
shebeen. As Modisane would write in his autobiography: "My mother wanted a better life for her children, a kind of insurance against poverty by trying to give me a prestige profession, and if necessary would go to jail whilst doing it." Modisane was also the
jazz critic at
Drum's sister publication, the weekly tabloid
Golden City Post. Modisane tried to facilitate non-racial progress in the arts by making concerts and theatre available to Black audiences and tried to further the efforts of the Arts Federation and the Union of South African Artists, both of which were non-racial. He wrote a number of short stories that were published in
Drum. One such story, "The Situation", derived from the
Tsotsitaal (slang) for educated Blacks who rise above their station (i.e. situated above their station) but do not really fit into their new milieu. (
Don Mattera mentioned this when describing the journalists: "There was a definite
class division. We were in the streets, and they were in the desks. And we used to call such people
situations.") Modisane found an outlet in acting. He joined the African Theatre Workshop and played in the first production of
Athol Fugard's
No-Good Friday (1958). He shared the writing credits on
Come Back, Africa, a 1959 film filmed mainly in
Sophiatown. Becoming frustrated by the political situation and oppression under the
apartheid regime, Modisane moved in 1959 to England, where in 1963 his
autobiography,
Blame Me on History, was published. This detailed his despair at the bulldozing of Sophiatown (mirroring
Can Themba's short story "Requiem for Sophiatown") and his frustration and anger with apartheid. As a result, the book was
banned in South Africa in 1966. Modisane continued acting and had a leading role in
Jean Genet's play
The Blacks at the
Royal Court Theatre in
London. He appeared in an uncredited role in the 1964 movie
Guns at Batasi, which starred
Richard Attenborough,
John Leyton, and
Mia Farrow. In the 1968 action classic
Dark of the Sun, Modisane had a small but memorable supporting role as Corporal Kataki, a sensitive soldier caught up in the rage and horror of the 1960s Congo civil wars. This particular film starred
Rod Taylor,
Kenneth More, and
Yvette Mimieux. It was a major box-office success when first released. In the early 1960s Modisane settled in
Dortmund,
West Germany, where he died in 1986 at the age of 63. ==Books==