Mzi Mahola

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Mzi Mahola was born on 12 February 1949 as Mzikayise Winston Mahola. Mzi Mahola is his nom de plume. He is a South African writer and poet.

[edit] Biography

Mzi Mahola started writing while he was at school. The Special Branch confiscated his first poetry manuscript in 1976 and he lost interest in writing for twelve years. After this period he started writing again, submitting work successfully to national and international journals, magazines and publications. His work has been published in more than eight anthologies.

His first book with poems is titled 'Strange Things' and was published in 1994 by Snail Press. This volume received positive reviewing and was amongst those selected to represent South Africa in Geneva in a World Book Fair in 1995. There was interest in translating the book into German and Danish, but this has not materialised to date.

His second volume 'When Rain Comes' was published in 2000 by Carapace and won the Olive Schreiner Book prize.

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At the moment he is editing and finalizing a semi-biographical novel called 'The Broken Link'. It will be finished by early next year (2005).

He has presented papers and given speeches at the National Arts Festival and at other venues for school children. He gives poetry readings for University groups and community projects. Now and then he runs poetry workshops around the Province for interested groups of writers.

He initiated a poetry workshops that caters for learners at his neighbourhood library, Zwide Library. With the support of Nelson Mandela Metropole Municipality the workshop participants published an anthology entitled Umthombo (Xhosa word for 'The Fountain').