Mongane Wally Serote (born 8 May 1944) is a South African poet and writer. He became involved in political resistance to the apartheid government by joining the African National Congress (ANC) and in 1969 was arrested and detained for several months without trial. He subsequently spent years in exile, working in Botswana, and later London, England, for the ANC in their Arts and Culture Department, before eventually returning to South Africa in 1990.

Early years

Mongane Wally Serote was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, 1944, just four years before the National Party (South Africa) came to power in South Africa. His early education took place in the poverty-stricken township of Alexandra and later at Morris Isaacson High School – the school in Jabavu, Soweto, and Sacred Heart Commercial High School, Lesotho. He first became involved in the Black Consciousness Movement 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.

1970s–1990: Life in exile

Serote went to study in New York City, United States, obtaining a Fine Arts degree at Columbia University.

After contributing poems to various journals, in 1972 he published his first collection, Yakhal'Inkomo. He has founded a few NGOs, iIKSSA Trust where he is the Chairperson, IARI of which he is also the CEO. He sits on a few advisory boards in the country dealing with Arts, Culture, Indigenous Knowledge and African Renaissance issues.

In 2018, Serote was announced as the National Poet Laureate of South Africa, following the death of Keorapetse Kgositsile.

  • 2008 - Third World Express selected for Africa Book Centre's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century
  • 2012 - Struga Night Awards: Poet Laureate of Macedonia

Writings

Poetry

  • City Johannesburg (1971)
  • Alexandra (1972)
  • Yakhal'inkomo (1972)
  • Beerhall Queen (1972)
  • For Don M- Banned (1973)
  • A Sleeping Black Boy
  • Tsetlo (1974)
  • No Baby Must Weep (1975)
  • Behold Mama, Flowers (1978)
  • The Night Keeps Winking (1982)
  • A Tough Tale (1987)
  • No More Strangers (1989)
  • Third World Express (1992)
  • Come and Hope With Me (1994)
  • Freedom Lament and Song (1997)
  • History is the Home Address (2004)

Novels

  • To Every Birth Its Blood (1981)
  • Gods of Our Time (1999)
  • Scatter the Ashes and Go (2002)
  • Revelations (2011)
  • Sikhahlel' u-OR (2019)

Essays

  • On the Horizon (1990)

See also

  • Alexandra
  • List of African writers
  • List of South African poets

References