"If you really want to understand South Africa, read black African writers. Read Es'kia Mphahlele," is the advice proffered to diplomats and scholars by professor and publisher Donald Herdeck. The irony is that in the past, many of Mphahlele's works were out of print or banned under censorship laws in South Africa from the early 1950s on. Readers were denied access to these seminal works, while black South African youths in particular...