When he died in 1943 at the age of 88, William Charles Scully, poet, novelist, storyteller and diarist, had already been forgotten by the general public of his adopted country. Yet he was a man who deserves to be remembered, both for his achievements during thirty-eight years in colonial and Union administration and for the series of books he wrote about rural society in the South African hinterland…
It was while working in the Transkei … that Scully wrote stories from which this selection is taken, they were enthusiastically received, both at home and abroad. Scully was hailed as an important new talent on the South African Scene.
The re-issuing of these stories should help to restore WC Scully to his rightful place in southern African literature.
