Daniel Canodoise "Can" Themba (21 June 1924 – 8 September 1967)[1][2] was a South African short-story writer.
Themba was born in Marabastad, near Pretoria, but wrote most of his work in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, South Africa.
He was a student at Fort Hare University College, where he received an English degree (first-class) and a teacher's diploma.
Temba entered the first short story contest of Drum (a magazine for urban black people concentrating mainly on investigative journalism), which he won.
As I walked through the Baptist door I was tense, waiting for that tap on the shoulder…but instead I was given a hymn book and welcomed into the church.
[citation needed] In Themba’s final years, his increasing dependency on alcohol led to darker, more introspective pieces, such as 'Crepuscle', 'The Will to Die', and 'The Bottom of the Bottle'.
A stage version of The Suit was created by Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg in the early 1990s.
It was subsequently translated into French as Le Costume by Barney Simon and Jean-Claude Carrière for a production by Peter Brook in Paris in 1994, revived in London in 2012.