LIONEL ROGOSIN

The pride of having grown up with Sophiatown shrivelled inside me; I had failed my children as my father and my forefathers and the ancestral gods of my fathers had failed me; they had lost the country, a continent, but I had failed to secure a patch of weeds for my children, a Sophiatown which essentially was a sulm. . . . The house in which I had been born was now grounded into the dust and it seemed especially appropriate that I should be standing there, as if to witness the closing of the cycle of my life in its destruction; my friends were leaving the country, Ezekiel Mphahlele had taken a job in Nigeria, the Millners were gone to Ireland, Arthur Maimane was in Ghana, and soon Elly and Lionel Rogosin and the crew of Come Back Africa would be leaving.

- Bloke Modisane, Blame Me On History (1963).