Sipho Sepamla

Sydney Sipho Sepamla (22 September 1932 – 9 January 2007) was a contemporary South African poet and novelist.[1]

Sipho Sepamla (l.) and Antonio Skármeta (1981)

Biography

Born in a township near Krugersdorp, Sipho Sepamla lived most of his life in Soweto.[2] He studied teaching at Pretoria Normal College and published his first volume of poetry, Hurry Up to It!, in 1975. During this period he was active in the Black Consciousness movement and his 1977 book The Soweto I Love, partly a response to the Soweto Uprising of 16 June 1976, was banned by the apartheid regime.[3] He was a founder of the Federated Union of Black Artists (now the Fuba Academy of Arts) and editor of the literary magazine New Classic and the theatre magazine S'ketsh.

He published several volumes of poetry and novels. He received the Thomas Pringle Award (1977) and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his writing. More recently in democratic South Africa he was a member of the government's Arts and Culture Task Group.

Works

Poetry

  • Hurry Up to It! (Donker, 1975)
  • The Soweto I Love (1977)
  • Selected poems (Donker, 1984)
  • From Gorée to Soweto (1988)

Novels

  • The Root is One (1979)
  • A Ride on the Whirlwind (1981)

References
  1. Message of Condolences on the passing of three prominent South African writers, Department of Arts and Culture, Government of South Africa. Accessed 1 March 2007.
  2. Sipho Sepamla Archived 23 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine (Contemporary Africa Database) Accessed: 15 January 2007.
  3. Sydney Sipho Sepamla Archived 14 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine Accessed: 15 January 2007.


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