The poetry of South Africa covers a broad range of themes, forms and styles. This article discusses the context that contemporary poets have come from and identifies the major poets of South Africa, their works and influence.
d’bi.young anitafrika is a Jamaican-Canadian feminist dub poet, activist, and singer for the band D’bi and the 333. Their work includes theatrical performances, four published collections of poetry, twelve plays, and seven albums.
Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ is a Kenyan American poet, author, and academic. He is associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University and co-founder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Writing. His father is the author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. His family was deeply impacted by the bloody British suppression of the Mau Mau revolution.
African literature is literature from Africa, either oral ("orature") or written in African and Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of pre-colonial African literature can be traced back to at least the fourth century AD. The best-known is the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings."
The Prince Claus Fund was established in 1996, named in honour of Prince Claus of the Netherlands.
Aryan Kaganof is a South African film maker, novelist, poet and fine artist. In 1999 he changed his name to Aryan Kaganof.
Gabeba Baderoon is a South African poet and academic. She is the 2005 recipient of the Daimler Chrysler Award for South African Poetry. She lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa, and Pennsylvania, US, and serves as an assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, African Studies and Comparative Literature at Penn State.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the continent Africa:
The Africa Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa, is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists.
A project of the Badilisha Poetry X-Change Badilisha Poetry Radio is an online platform created to appreciate, celebrate and discover contemporary Pan-African poetry. Badilisha Poetry Radio focuses on weekly podcasts featuring poets from the African Continent and its Diaspora. It is a space dedicated to the exposure and growth of previously unheard and unknown poetry voices from the continent, and an archive of historical poets from the continent and beyond.
African poetry encompasses a wide variety of traditions arising from Africa's 55 countries and from evolving trends within different literary genres. The field is complex, primarily because of Africa's original linguistic and cultural diversity and partly because of the effects of slavery and colonisation, which resulted in English, Portuguese and French, as well as creole or pidgin versions of these European languages, being spoken and written by Africans across the continent.
Brunel International African Poetry Prize is a literary award aimed at the "development, celebration and promotion of poetry from Africa." The prize is sponsored by Brunel University and Bernardine Evaristo. In the past it has been partnered by Commonwealth Writers and the African Poetry Book Fund USA. It comes with a £3,000 honorarium. It is aimed at unpublished poets with a manuscript of ten poems.
Warsan Shire is a British writer, poet, editor and teacher, who was born to Somali parents in Kenya. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize, chosen from a shortlist of six candidates out of a total 655 entries. Her words "No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark", from the poem "Conversations about Home ", have been called "a rallying call for refugees and their advocates".
Toni Stuart is a South African poet best known for her poetry writing and performances. She has stated that she aims to encourage others to find their own voice by offering inspirational creative workshops.
Lebogang Mashile is a South African-born American actress, writer and performance poet.
The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.
Malika Booker is a British writer, poet and multi-disciplinary artist, who is considered "a pioneer of the present spoken word movement" in the UK. Her writing spans different genres of storytelling, including poetry, theatre, monologue, installation and education, and her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Organizations for which she has worked include Arts Council England, the BBC, British Council, Wellcome Trust, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arvon, and Hampton Court Palace.
Commonword (1975–present) is a writing development organisation based in Manchester, North West England, providing opportunities for new and aspiring writers to develop their talent and potential, promoting new writing on national and international levels. The organisation was set up in 1975. It is currently the largest new writing, community writing and publishing organisation in the North West. It is a limited company and registered charity, and is Arts Council funded. Activist and writer Deyika Nzeribe was a former chair.
