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 first became involved in Black Consciousness when he was finishing high school in Soweto. His presence in that town linked him to a group known as the "township" or "Soweto" poets, and his poems often expressed themes of political activism, the development of black identity, and violent images of revolt and resistance. 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.

After publishing in various journals, he published his first anthology in 1972, Yakhal'Inkomo. In 1973 he won the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize.

He was a Fulbright Scholar and received a fine arts degree from Columbia University in 1979. He was not able to return to South Africa and he began a life in exile, living in Botswana and London, where he was involved in the Medu Art Ensemble.

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