As part of his Master's thesis, in 1962 he published "The African Image", which provides a historical perspective of South African literature. In 1967, he edited the anthology "African Writing Today", which was published by Penguin. During his Ph.D., he produced "The Wanderers", a novel of exile originally submitted as a dissertation for his Ph.D. in creative writing. "Down Second Avenue" was doing so well such that it was translated into French and German in 1964. In December 1978, the Minister of Justice took Mphahlele's name off the list of writers who may be quoted, and whose works may not be circulated in the country. Only "Down Second Avenue", "Voices in the Whirlwind" and "Modern African Stories", which he had co-edited, could then be read in the country. Other publications remained banned.