Ezekiel Es'kia Mphahlele, author and African literature professor at Wits University, died on Monday. He was 88.

Mphahlele's son-in-law, Shibe Maruatona said he died of natural causes at the Lebowakgomo hospital in Limpopo.

Born in 1919 in Marabastad, he was a herdboy in the then Northern Transvaal and later became a high school teacher.

Mphahlele was banned by the apartheid government in 1957 and emigrated to the United States, where he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Denver and taught at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mphahlele returned to South Africa in 1977. He joined the University of the Witwatersrand as its first black professor and founded the African Literature Department.

Details of funeral arrangements would be released soon.