Moeti oa bochabela (1907; The Traveler of the East) by Thomas Mokopu Mofolo was the first Sesotho novel.Mofolo wrote the novel after encouragement from his missionary employers at Sesotho Book Depot in Morija. As a result, more teaching graduates began writing their own novels, sparking the first literary movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the twentieth century. The novel first appeared serially in the Sesotho-language daily Leselinyana on January 1, 1906.