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Arguably, one of the greatest African intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth-century. Of all the New African intellectuals, Dhlomo was more consistent and persistent in engaging himself with the dialectic between modernity and tradition in African intellectual and cultural history. Working with his senior colleagues, R. V. Selope Thema, H. Selby Msimang, Allan Kirkland Soga. Solomon T. Plaatje, in the newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu, from the moment he barely pass twenty years, Dhlomo inhereted from them one cardinal historical principle in the making of South African modernity, that New Negro modernity had inexhaustible historical lessons for New African modernity. All of these New African intellectuals worked together in this newspaper in the 1920s to forge the most compelling theoretical system of South African modernity. Extending this intellectual tradition into the sphere of creativity, in contrast to the previous decade of historical theorizations, Dhlomo in the 1930s wrote many historical plays, unfortunately some of which have been lost, about Shaka, Moshoeshoe, Dingane, Cetshwayo, Nstikana, among others, examing the nature of the legacy of the traditional past for the presentness of modernity (the plays, poetry and short stories have been assembled by Nick Visser and Tim Couzens in the single volume: H. I. E. Dhlomo: Collected Works, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1985). Working in this decade for the Bantu World newspaper, under the editorialship of his mentor R. V. Selope Thema, Dhlomo wrote a series of theoretical essays on the ideological form of modern African drama. A seminal event in South African intellectual history occurred in 1938: both striving to construct a theoretical system of African poetic form, Dhlomo from the perspective of drama, and Benedict Vilakazi from that of poetry, clashed about the proper cultural instruments of representing modernity. The real point of contention between them was whether the English language or the African language(s) should be the instrument for creating African modernities. This exchange had a profound effect on Dhlomo. Beginning in 1943 as assistant editor to his brother R. R. R. Dhlomo in Ilanga lase Natal, Dhlomo shifted his creative endeavours from theater to short stories and poems. The poems were over-influenced, even marred, by the poetics of Romanticism. In the late 1940s, especially in 1947, Dhlomo wrote a series of extraordinary prose-poems, which clamour for inclusion as among the foremost creations of African modernism. In all the phases of his intellectual life, Dhlomo wrote many brilliant essays. Responding to the founding of the ANC Youth League in 1943, the institutionalization of official Apartheid beginning in 1948, the succesful implementation of the Defiance Campaign of 1952, Dhlomo shifted intellectual from cultural and literary matters to those of politics. At this time he was the most formidable intellectual force within the ranks of the ANC. In the last two years of his life, from his sickly bed, he intermittently wrote huge columns on sports in Ilanga lase Natal. In as much as Theodor Adorno is arguably the pre-eminent critic of European modernism, a similar case can be made for H. I. E. Dhlomo concerning African modernism. He was certain that posterity would eventually recognize his enormous contributions to African cultural history. In this, H. I. E. Dhlomo has been absolutely correct. (An excellent biography of Dhlomo has been written by Tim Couzens: The New African: A Study Of The Life And Works Of H. I. E. Dhlomo, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1985).