Author Raditladi honoured on Mercury

Gasebalwe Seretse | Wednesday January 29, 2014 15:42

According to Wikipedia, Raditladi Basin is a large peak ring impact crater on Planet Mercury measuring 263km in diameter that was named after Raditladi on April 8, 2008.

Inside its peak ring, there is a system of concentric extensional troughs that are rare surface features on Mercury.

The floor of Raditladi Basin is partially covered by relatively light smooth plains, which are thought to be a product of effusive volcanism.

According to the online source, the basin is relatively young, which means it is younger than one billion years, with only a few small impact craters on its floor and well-preserved basin walls and peak ring structure.

Interestingly, even Raditladi's son, Disang Raditladi, only became aware of the honour that his father received from NASA just a few months ago.'I only became aware of the Raditladi Basin after a family friend alerted me four months back and I immediately told other family members,” Disang told Mmegi.

Raditladi, a playwright and poet, is best known for Sefalana sa Menate, Dintshontsho tsa Lorato, Motswasele, Mokomaditlhare and Sekgoma, among others.

He is regarded as one of southern Africa's best Setswana writers whose books are still selling well in South Africa, which has the largest population of Setswana speakers on the sub-continent. The playwright has translated a number of William Shakespeare’s works into Setswana, which made him an author of note.

Raditladi’s relative and adoptive daughter, Sentshang Raditladi describes him as a giant of a man who was always industrious.

She remembers that he wrote most of his major works while he was still based in Mahalapye in the 1950s and 1960s.

'He drafted his works by hand,' she says. 'At times he would get me to print them before he took time to type everything on his typewriter.'  Sentshang remembers how Raditladi juggled many responsibilities in between writing his books, 'and it never showed because he was an energetic person”.

Being an aristocrat, Raditladi was a royal uncle and he attended a number of prestigious schools in neighbouring South Africa.

Apart from his fame as a writer, he served as a service clerk in the colonial government and as a tribal secretary for Kgosi Moremi III of Batawana.  He is also the founder of Botswana’s first political party, the Bechuanaland Protectorate Federal Party, which faded away just before independence.

The extraterrestial tribute is not Raditladi’s first, a primary school having long been named after him in Mahalapye where he was Kgosi for a number of years.

Raditladi was born in 1910 and died at the age of 61 in 1971.