As a writer, he brought his own experiences in and outside South Africa to bear on his short stories, fiction, autobiography and history, developing the concept of African humanism.
He was the recipient of the 1998 World Economic Forum Crystal Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts and Education.
From the age of five, he lived with his paternal grandmother in Maupaneng Village, in GaMphahlele (now in Lepelle-Nkumpi Municipality), Limpopo Province, where he herded cattle and goats.
He married Rebecca Nnana Mochedibane, whose family was a victim of forced removals in Vrededorp, in 1945 (the same year his mother died).
A qualified social worker with a diploma from Jan Hofmeyer School, in Johannesburg, she and Mphahlele would have five children.
He applied for a visa through the consulate in Nairobi, in order to visit his younger brother Bassie (Solomon) who was ill with throat cancer, but his application was turned down.
"For her part, Rebecca, always busy with the kids, survived by her own ingenuity and native practical sense, by her outgoing temperament.
From 1966 to 1968, under the sponsorship of the Farfield Foundation, Mphahlele became a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English at the University of Denver, Colorado, where he earned his PhD in Creative Writing.
He worked in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Ibadan, travelling to various outlying districts to teach adults.
He also lectured in Sweden, France, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria.
Mphahlele attended the first All-African Peoples' Conference organised by Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958.
"[7] Mphahlele recalls meeting with the late Patrick Duncan and Jordan Ngubane, who were representing the South African liberal view.
It was at this conference that Mphahlele met Kenneth Kaunda, and listened to Frantz Fanon deliver a fiery speech against colonialism.
They lived on Boulevard du Montparnasse, just off St. Michel, a few blocks from the Le Select and La Coupole restaurants.
They raised money from Merrill Foundation in New York to finance Mbari Publications, a venture the club had undertaken.
He toured and worked in major African cities including Kampala, Brazzaville, Yaoundé, Accra, Abidjan, Freetown and Dakar.
John Hunt, the executive director of the Congress for Cultural Freedom suggested that Mphahlele establish a centre like the Nigerian Mbari in Nairobi.
Within a few months, they had converted a warehouse into offices, a small auditorium for experimental theatre and intimate music performances, and an art gallery.
When the Alliance High School for Girls (just outside Nairobi) asked him to write a play for its annual drama festival, in the place of the routine Shakespeare Mphahlele adapted Grace Ogot's "The Rain Came", a short story, and called it Oganda’s Journey.
Mphahlele spent his time in Philadelphia teaching, writing and never stopped thinking about going back home to South Africa.
They were considered to have become British nationals, and had to approach the South African government through a single person in authority, Dr. C. N. Phatudi, the then Chief Minister of Lebowa, who had agreed to make representations on their behalf.
He further recalled a small one-room tin shack the then municipality called a "reading room", on the western edge of Marbastad.
He dug out of the pile Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, and went through the whole lot like a termite, elated by the sense of discovery, recognition of the printed word and by the mere practice of the skill of reading.
He enjoyed a combination of Cervantes' Don Quixote and Sancho Panza together with Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton.
Now a classic of African literature, Down Second Avenue had successful printings in English, French, German, Russian, Dutch and Japanese, reflecting the impact and international popularity of the book.
In December 1978, the Minister of Justice took Mphahlele's name off the list of writers who may be quoted, and whose works may not be circulated in the country.
"I had the opportunity to of travelling the length and breadth of the territory visiting schools and demonstrating aspects of English teaching.
It was a two-month research fellowship where his proposal of finishing his memoir Afrika My Music, which he had begun in Philadelphia, was accepted.
After his retirement from Wits University in 1987, Mphahlele was appointed as the executive chairman of the board of directors at Funda Centre for Community Education.
With the end of apartheid, he emerged as an eloquent proponent of the need to nurture the arts to feed a culture traumatized by colonization and oppression.