Going through runs of black newspapers I came across an advertisement in 1923 for Zonophone gramophone records, the first made for commercial purposes by black South Africans.

Three of these records were made by Plaatje. We thought we would never find them.

Then one day, as rian Willan was interviewing Martha Bokako, Plaatje's 90-year-old niece, in Thaba 'Nchu, he asked if she had ever heard, or heard of, these records. Almost blind, she nonetheless shuffled through to the other room of her house and came back with a few old 78s, among them one of the Plaatje records.

Willan telegrammed me in Johannesburg, and I shot down like a sniper's bullet to meet him in Kimberley. But I drove back at 50km/h with the record on cushions on the floor of my car, which is why I always plead with people not to treat slow drivers with contempt, since they may be carrying precious historic cargo.

The record, containing two folk songs, was pitted and scratched, so it took four hours to record the two three-minute sides. It was worth it.

Little did I suspect the further surprise that awaited me. Not only did Plaatje's voice come alive again long after his death, but, unannounced on the label, he also sings Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the first-ever recording of the national anthem.

it is surprising that he was forgotten, his voice lost.

In 30 years of research the details of his life have emerged.

There were moments of great excitement. Aged 23, he was caught in the siege of Mafeking at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899; at 25, he was founder and editor of the first Tswana newspaper and became one of the country's finest journalists; in 1912, he was a founder member of the ANC and was elected its first organising secretary (in its early years he kept congress going almost single-handedly at the expense of his pocket and his health); in 1914 and 1919, he went on delegations to Britain to try to get the 1913 Land Act repealed.

There were also moments of great sadness.

In the days before Union, Plaatje, of Barolong royal blood and a voting citizen of the Cape, used to swim for pleasure in the hot springs at Aliwal North.

In 1918 his daughter, Olive, named after Olive Schreiner, contracted Spanish flu and was critically ill. Doctors recommended the waters at Aliwal North, but when Plaatje took her there she was refused entry.

Plaatje had seen the devastating effects of the Land Act when he cycled through the Free State, talking to squatters who had been evicted. Now the harsh hand of the new dispensation had touched his daughter.

Only recently has recognition come to Plaatje. His grave in Kimberley has been declared a national monument. So has his house in Kimberley. Last month, the University of North-West conferred on him a posthumous honorary doctorate. But his achievements are still not sufficiently recognised nationally.

Aside from his fine translation of Shakespeare into Setswana and his vigorous journalism, three works of Plaatje's stand out like lights on a dark sea.

So many of the besieged British kept and published diaries during the siege of Mafeking that it is surprising the Boers did not walk into the town while the British were all scribbling away. Only one known diary was kept by an African - Plaatje's - and it was discovered and published 40 years after his death. It is a vivid, perceptive, sad, humorous daily account of the struggles of the besieged, black and white.

He dedicated it to Olive. She had never fully recovered from her illness and one day a couple of years later she was sent home from school. Although she felt faint she was allowed neither to enter the "whites-only" waiting room nor to lie down on the platform benches. She died, aged 16, waiting for the train.

Yet the novel is not a bitter book. It is a love story about a Barolong couple who flee from the town of Khunwana, destroyed by the wrath of the invading Ndebele in 1832, across the Free State to find refuge with the Barolong of Thaba Nchu; it is a historical novel about the united efforts of the Barolong, Griqua and Boers to defeat the Ndebele and the betrayal that followed this alliance; it is a political allegory about the Land Act, about tyranny and justice; it is an autobiographical prose-poem to his wife; and it is the first South African epic and the first epic to articulate the idea of a common South Africanness.

Plaatje was no saint: he squabbled with his neighbours, he did some labour recruiting, he left his wife (whom he loved) to pursue his politics overseas for years, and his long absences seriously affected his children.

But neither was he a conservative collaborator: he opposed early detention without trial, he analysed - like few before him or since - the system of segregation, and he pioneered the appeal to the outside world which was ultimately to be so important in the downfall, long after his death in 1932, of the unjust system of which he was one of the strongest critics.

He was not corrupt - he made no financial gain from politics.

In the words of Raymond Motsepe, provincial MEC in North West province, Plaatje is the missing link between the rich and the poor, between intellectuals and the illiterate - he spoke the language of the rich and the poor.

With all the talk of an African renaissance at the graduation that made him Dr Plaatje, I discussed with Professor Philip Tobias the general idea of a renaissance.

We agreed that a renaissance needed renaissance men (used generically to include women).

What are some of the qualities of such a person? We felt that a wide knowledge of many things was needed, as well as expertise in several. Depth is critical: it excludes a jack-of-all-trades, a dilettante, an opportunist, an exploiter. Does Plaatje qualify for this status? Certainly.

Because of a shortage of literacy and other skills, he had to put his hand to many things. Then how did he come by his virtues?

Plaatje was lucky. He grew up in the countryside (near Barkly West) but lived close to the first industrial town (Kimberley), where he got his first job. At heart, however, he always remained a man of the country. Genetically, socially, culturally he inherited or acquired a combination of what one can only call civilised virtues.

His intelligence was palpable, his temperament temperate.

little formal schooling, he got the very best education: from his mother, his grandmother, his aunts and great-aunts, he acquired the knowledge and history of his people and of African culture; from his German missionary teachers he learnt French, German and English, Shakespeare and Goethe, and the music of Beethoven and others.

In these days, when missionaries are casually derided, this is important to remember: Plaatje learned much of the Enlightenment from enlightened people. He did not turn his back on it, or them, in bitterness.

Plaatje was proud of his Tswana culture and wanted to preserve it, but he was not a tribalist; he was an SA nationalist, but an inclusivist not an exclusivist; as in the Song of Solomon, he was proud to be black and comely, but he was the opposite of a racist; he loved what he thought was good in African culture and what he thought was good in European culture, yet he did not hesitate to condemn aspects of both. Thus Plaatje makes a mockery of the facile categories of Eurocentric and Afrocentric.

If one wants to pursue with religious zeal narrow sectarian goals then a better label than an "African renaissance" would be an "African revival" or "awakening", though one should remember the dangerous path down which this can lead, a path towards persecution and dictatorship, which Plaatje himself warned against.

But if one is in genuine pursuit of a renaissance and not intent on misusing the word, then the model of Solomon Plaatje, complex, subtle, critical, non-conformist, fallible, humane, is worth a second glance.

Tim Couzens is editor of the most recent edition of Mhudi (Francolin Press, 1996)

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