Mongane Wally Serote is a poet based in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. He attended school in Alexandra and Jabavu, Soweto. His education would later play into the uprising against Bantu Education. He joined the African National Congress and became involved with the Black Consciousness Movement following finishing his high school years. He was heavily inspired by poetry that spoke of Black identity and rebellion. A few years later, in 1972, he published his first collection Yakhal’inkomo, winning him the Ingrid Jonker Prize, and his seventh collection Third World Express won him Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. He was also awarded the Pablo Neruda Award from the Chilean government. His poetry heavily focused on the silenced and repressed Black voices of his people. He and fellow writers Sipho Sepamla, Oswald Mtshali, Chris van Wyk, and Don Mattera, wrote politically charged poetry with an anti-apartheid sentiment. His first book To Every Birth Its Blood offers insight into their political movements. His later work Gods of Our Time portrayed the growing militancy of civilians. He also wrote epics which include Shadow in Motion: Bra-Zeke Mphahlele, Heat and Sweat, For Those of Us Who Make Music, When Lights Go Out and Child of the Song are from part two of Behold Mama, Flowers.
Information from South African History Online.
