Down second avenue is Es'kia Mphahlele's autobiography of his South African childhood and his struggle against discrimination. The memoir tells of Es'kia's childhood in Maupaneng, a small village outside Pietersburg, and Marabastad, a location in Pretoria. Here he showed academic promise. This resulted in a career as a teacher. After a number of years, though, he was barred from teaching because of his vocal opposition to the segregation and discrimination occurring in schools. Mphahlele then worked for Drum magazine in various capacities. The biography culminates in his exile from South Africa in 1957. Down second avenue is Mphahlele's personal account of his struggle for identity and dignity in the face of the growing discriminatory policies of the South African government. It is a compelling mix of humour and pathos.

Es'kia Mphahlele's seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa-available for the first time in Penguin Classics Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1969, Es'kia Mphahlele is considered the Dean of African Letters and the father of black South African writing. Down Second Avenue is a landmark book that describes Mphahlele's experience growing up in segregated South Africa. Vivid, graceful, and unapologetic, it details a daily life of severe poverty and brutal police surveillance under the subjugation of an apartheid regime. Banned in South Africa after its original 1959 publication for its protest against apartheid, Down Second Avenue is a foundational work of literature that continues to inspire activists today. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The quintessential story collection from "the most important black South African writer of the present age" (George Moore).
Originally published in 1967, "In Corner B" contains the core stories of the original editions, together with more recent pieces, and is the first new edition of Mphahlele's work since his death in 2008. Written after his return from exile, these stories inimitably capture life in both rural and urban South Africa during the days of apartheid. A new introduction by Peter Thuynsma, a South African scholar and former Mphahlele student, presents the "dean of African letters" to a new generation of readers.

RENEWAL TIME marked the odyssey and return of Es'kia Mphahlele, a remarkable South African man of letters, at a remarkable moment in South African history.

Exiled in the 1950s, he wrote the classic account of a black man's coming of age in South Africa, Down Second Avenue. Plays, novels, stories and essays followed. During his twenty years of travelling widely in Africa, Europe and the United States, Mphahlele also took a special role as a teacher and editor, identifying and fostering new African talent. His power as a storyteller remained constant. These stories can give readers outside Africa an appreciation of Mphahlele's range and talent, and his unchanging perception of both the tragedy and complexity of apartheid in his home country. In the two later essays that open and close this collection, the writer reflects on the thoughts and feelings that influenced his return to South Africa, where he took a pivotal role in the education and culture of the post-apartheid country we see today.

Readers International re-issues this US edition marking thirty years since South Africa's first post-apartheid election in 1994.