Lewis Nkosi (1936–2010), born in Embo (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), was an acclaimed journalist, writer and professor of literature in various African and European countries as well as in the USA. Living in exile since 1960, he resided in Basel between 1997 and 2010. On 11th November 1999 he gave a reading from his yet unpublished novel “Mandela’s Ego” (2006) at the BAB. In the extracts of the audio recording presented here, he explains his motivation to write about ‘the day Mandela is arrested’, reads from his novel and reflects about the challenges of also writing in his mother tongue isiZulu.

The BAB Publishing House published the monograph Lewis Nkosi. The Black Psychiatrist | Flying Home: Texts, Perspectives, Homage which consists of two plays by Lewis Nkosi and reflections, critical appraisals and memories by friends and scholars on the life and work of this South African writer.