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African Perspectives Publishing - Don Mattera

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180 pages

English

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Donato Francesco Mattera has been celebrated as a journalist, editor, writer and poet. He is also acknowledged as one of the foremost activists in the struggle for a democratic South Africa, and helped to found both the Union of Black Journalists, the African Writer�s Association and the Congress of South African Writers. Born in 1935 in Western Native Township (now Westbury) across the road from Sophiatown, Mattera can lay claim to an intriguingly diverse lineage: his paternal grandfather was Italian, and he has Tswana, Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa blood in his veins. Yet diversity was hardly being celebrated at that time. In one of apartheid�s most infamous actions, the vibrant multicultural Sophiatown was destroyed in 1955 and replaced with the white suburb of Triomf, and the wrenching displacement, can be felt in Mattera�s writing. The story of his life in Sophiatown as told in this essay is intricate. Covering Mattera�s teenage years from 1948 to 1962 when Sophiatown was bulldozed out of existence, it weaves together both his personal experience and political development. In telling the story of his life as a �coloured� teenager, Mattera takes on the ambitious goal of making us recapture the crucial events of the 1950s in Sophiatown, one of the most important decades in the history of black political struggles in South Africa.

Sujets

Autobiography

Biography

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Publié par	African Perspectives Publishing
Date de parution	01 décembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780981439839
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0998€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

MEMORY is the WEAPON

DON MATTERA

MEMORY is the WEAPON

The Department of Arts and Culture (South Africa) has contributed financially to the reprinting ofMemory is the Weapon.

African Perspectives Publishing PO Box 95342 Grant Park 2051 South Africa www.africanperspectives.co.za

in association with

African Morning Star Publications PO Box 562 Florida 1710 South Africa

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

First published by Raven Press 1987

This edition (revised) published by African Perspectives Publishing in association with African Morning Star Publications 2007

ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-620-39487-1 ISBN (hard cover) 978-0-620-39490-1

Edited by Paul Denham Typeset by Gail Day Cover design by Phehello Mofoleng, Design Garage Colour illustration courtesy of Peter Hammer Vertag, Wuppertal, Germany Printed and bound by Intrepid Printers (Pty) Ltd

Contents

About Don Mattera

Introduction

chapterone Demolition

chaptertwo Bad News

chapterthree To Become a Man

chapterfour Sophiatown

vii ix

chapterfive Dai-Sok

chaptersix A Brush with the Police

chapterseven Dumazile

chaptereight Other Faces of Kofifi

chapternine Father Trevor Huddleston

chapterten Pinocchio

chaptereleven Gangland

chaptertwelve Jail

chapterthirteen The Change

chapterfourteen The Big Move

112

128

140

Contents

About Don Mattera

vii

Writing was certainly not an obvious conclusion to his youth, which had been characterised by gangs, violence and jail. Partly under the influ-ence of Father Trevor Huddleston, Mattera began wielding a pen rather than a knife, yet with equal facility; using the struggle as his subject, he went on to produce a series of poems, stories and plays of force and originality. The authorities responded by raiding his house, imprisoning, torturing, and banning him for ten years. It was during these tumultuous times that Mattera wrote the poems contained inAzanian Love Song. These were followed by plays,an autobiography, children’s writings and more poetry. All this was accomplished while he worked as a journalist forThe Star, theWeekly Mail (now theMail & Guardian) and other newspapers. Mattera is the holder of several prestigious literary awards as well as numerous humanitarian citations, including the South African Presi-dential Order of Ikhamba – Silver (2007), the South African Department of Arts & Culture Literary Lifetime Achievement Award (2007), the Crown of Peace Award (Korea and Washington – 2004), the Ambassador of Peace Award (Kenya – 2001), the World Health Organisation’s Peace Award from the Centre of Violence and Injury Prevention (1997), and the French Human Rights Award for the We Care Trust. He has also been awarded an honorary PhD Literature, from the University of Natal. He continues to serve as an active patron of several well-known charities in Johannesburg.

viii

About Don Mattera