Mongane Wally Serote

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Mongane Wally Serote (1944-) is a South African poet and writer. He was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg and went to school in Alexandra, Lesotho and Soweto. He was arrested by the apartheid government under the Terrorism Act in June 1969 and spent nine months in solitary confinement, before being released without charge. He went to study in New York, obtaining a Fine Arts degree at the Columbia University, before going to work in Gaborone, Botswana and later London for the African National Congress in their Arts and Culture Department.

In 1993, he won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. In 2004, he received the Pablo Neruda award from the Chilean government.

He has served as chair of the parliamentary select committee for arts and culture, and is currently the CEO of Freedom Park, a national heritage site in Pretoria that is scheduled to open in early 2009.

[edit] Poetry

• Yakhal'inkomo (1972)
• Tsetlo (1974)
• No baby must weep (1975)
• Behold Mama, Flowers (1978)
• The Night Keeps Winking (1982)
• A tough tale (1987)
• Third world express (1992)
• Come and Hope With Me (1994)
• Freedom Lament and Song (1997)
• History is the Home Address (2004)

[edit] Novels

• To every Birth its Blood (1981)
• Gods of Our Time (1999)
• Scatter the Ashes and Go (2002)

[edit] Essays

• On the Horizon (1990)

See also: List of African writers, List of South African poets