The work of South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele has confounded literary critics, especially those who feel compelled to draw a sharp distinction between autobiography and fiction. ███
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This might be very tempting, because we know that Mphahlele articulated a vision for the future. But although Mphahlele believes writers should convey a social message, that doesn’t mean he thinks all writers should convey a vision of the future. The articulation of a vision of the future was Mphahlele’s way of providing social criticism. But there may be other ways to provide social criticism. Maybe, for example, a writer can directly comment on current society and how it’s bad. Mphahlele wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that style of social criticism.
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We know that Mphahlele isn’t concerned with following sharp distinctions between literary categories. But does this mean he has a belief about what’s required in order to pay attention to literary categories? No. Maybe Mphahlele thinks there’s no situation in which we need to pay attention to literary categories. There’s no support for the idea that he thinks there’s a necessary condition for paying attention to literary categories.
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Mphahlele doesn’t comment in the passage on whether over half of works of literature that resemble novels can be classified as autobiographies. He’s not concerned with classification, so it doesn’t make sense for Mphahlele to have an opinion about whether certain classification are accurate.
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The last paragraph mentions that Mphahlele believes all writing, including prose, poetry, and drama, should convey a social message. But this doesn’t mean Mphahlele thinks the distinctions between prose, poetry, and drama are important.