Short stories
Casey and Co.
Casey Motsisi · 1978
Synopsis
Tales, sketches and short press pieces, most of them published in Drum over some twenty years. Almost everything starts from the illegal drinking dens of Johannesburg, where the proprietress Aunt Peggy reigns and where regulars named Mattress, Kid Newspapers or Kid Sponono keep returning. The first sketches answer poverty, arrests, evictions and raids with a stubborn gaiety; a few stories, including that of Ma Tladi, treat their subject with vigorous realism, and a single poem, “The Efficacy of Prayer”, turns biting.
Context
The collection appeared in Johannesburg in 1978, a year after its author's death, from Ravan Press; the writer Mothobi Mutloatse had made the selection. Reviewing the book in the journal Reality, Marie Dyer judged the Sophiatown sketches dated and noted, in a text of 1976 written after the Soweto riots, a drift towards nostalgia; she thought he would be remembered above all for his comedy.
Who it is for
Short newspaper pieces in English, comic and irreverent, easy to approach; not translated into French.
Prizes and reception
The only book by its author, it brings together press pieces that had never been collected in his lifetime.