Fuze, Magema Magwaza /Papers

Magema Magwaza Fuze was born in Zululand c1840. As a boy of about 12 his father took him to Bishop Colenso who converted him to Christianity. Fuze was brought up by Colenso and educated at the mission station Ekukhanyeni ('place of enlightenment'). He accompanied Colenso on a visit to Mpande in 1859. Before the war of 1879, at the request of the Bishop, he visited Cetshwayo. Fuze qualified as a compositor on Colenso's printing press. After the war of 1979 he assisted Harriette Colenso at the trial of the Usutu Party at Eshowe. In 1896 he was summonsed by Dinuzulu, then in exile on St Helena, to be his secretary and act as tutor to his children. He returned with the Royal family to Natal on the 'SS Umbilo' in early January 1898. Fuze retained a life long association with the Colenso family, in particular Harriette Colenso. Shortly after the turn of the century he wrote Abantu Abamnyama, after a long struggle to raise money for its publication, the book was privately published in 1922. Fuze's book is the first ever written in Zulu by a Zulu author. The first English translation was published in 1979, in the KCAL translation series. It was translated by H C Lugg and edited by Professor A T Cope.