While Thomas Mofolo's work has been widely examined, his life story has been largely overlooked and no complete biography has been published.

[5][6] His family were members of the Protestant church and remained loyal to the Cape Colony forces during the Basuto Gun War, which led them to flee their home and settle in Mafeteng.

Having spent his early year herding the family's cattle, Mofolo began his education at the age of 10 or 12 under the guidance of Everitt Lechesa Segoete at Qomoqomong.

By 1898, at the age of 22, Mofolo was able to complete his studies and gained employment at the Morija Sesuto Book Depot, which acted as the centre of publishing in Basutoland.

Mofolo returned to education, this time to Leloaleng Industrial School, where he learned carpentry, before becoming a teacher at Maseru.

[12][13] In 1904 Mofolo returned to the Morija Sesuto Book Depot, and that year married Francina Matšeliso Shoarane, who had been educated in the Cape Colony.

Mofolo's third, Chaka, was suppressed and publication was delayed by around 15 years due to the reluctance of the missionary press to release the work.

Little is known of it, other than a passing reference in a contemporary missionary account that notes it set out to disprove an unspecified theory of Marie Corelli.

[25] While now considered a pioneer African novel, it was conceived as an allegory or fable and often seen to borrow heavily from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

More recently, the place of lithoko praise poems and the influence of other Sesotho writers whose work appeared in Leselinyana, such as Daniele Methusala, have been highlighted.

Set in precolonial Lesotho, the English translation sees the protagonist, Fekisi, view society being overtaken by evil, with the only solution to turn towards Christianity.

[26] A novel about love and marriage, as well as the natural environment, Pitseng is set in a village in Lesotho at the beginning of the twentieth century.

While vividly describing the natural world, the novel is a love story between a school teacher and a local girl.