Mongane Wally Serote: artistic talent in the struggle

Abstract

Mongane Wally Serote is recognised as one of South Africa's leading cultural activists who used his literary works to conscientise others about the nature of apartheid and to draw people into the liberation struggle. Serote's poetry and novels reflect the experience of life under apartheid and in exile, giving rise to evocative accounts that inspired many and drew attention to some of the sacrifices made by those who participated in the struggle. Serote effectively used his literary skills to give a voice to those who had been made silent by apartheid. Serote was born on 8 May 1944 in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. His maternal grandfather and his mother were both politically active and his mother would often take the young Serote to ANC political rallies. The family relocated to Alexandra when Serote was four years old. When Bantu Education was introduced in 1955, his parents enrolled him at an ANC school established at the time to subvert the new education system. He subsequently spent a year-and-a-half at the Sacred Heart College in Lesotho, before returning to Alexandra, where he spent most of his youth and did his secondary schooling. In his teens, additional political influences arose in the context of major upheavals in Alexandra, in particular the 1957 Alexandra bus boycott. After completing his matric at Morris Isaacson School in Soweto, he tried to study by correspondence. It was at this time that he began writing poetry while working as a freelance journalist. He also established links with cultural activists in the region, the so-called 'Township poets' or 'Soweto poets', such as Mafika Gwala and Oswald Mtshali, who later became active in the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Together they established the South African Black Theatre.