Biographical Sketch: Njabulo NDEBELE
Institution: University of Cape Town
Country: South Africa
Njabulo S. Ndebele is Senior Scholar-in-Residence at Bard College in the USA, a position he holds while on sabbatical leave from the University of Cape Town. His two-term tenure of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town ended on June 30, 2008. Professor Ndebele began his term of office as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in July 2000, following tenure as Scholar-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation's headquarters in New York. He joined the Foundation in September 1998 after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the North in Sovenga (now the University of Limpopo) in South Africa.
Professor Ndebele is the author Fools and Other Stories which won the Noma Award for best book published in Africa in 1983; the critically acclaimed novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela; Bonolo and the Peach Tree, and the highly influential critical essays South African Literature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary. His latest publication, Fine Lines from the Box, has recently been released.
He has received honorary degrees from Universities in South Africa, USA, UK, The Netherlands, and Japan.
He is currently President of the Association of African Universities and Chair of the Board of Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), and is a trustee on the boards of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Mandela-Rhodes Foundations, and the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust.
While at Bard College, he is working on a fiction project, and is looking at prospects for school reform in South Africa within a local government setting, from the perspective of systems thinking.
Professor Ndebele is the author Fools and Other Stories which won the Noma Award for best book published in Africa in 1983; the critically acclaimed novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela; Bonolo and the Peach Tree, and the highly influential critical essays South African Literature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary. His latest publication, Fine Lines from the Box, has recently been released.
He has received honorary degrees from Universities in South Africa, USA, UK, The Netherlands, and Japan.
He is currently President of the Association of African Universities and Chair of the Board of Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), and is a trustee on the boards of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Mandela-Rhodes Foundations, and the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust.
While at Bard College, he is working on a fiction project, and is looking at prospects for school reform in South Africa within a local government setting, from the perspective of systems thinking.