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

Biography

Born in a township near Krugersdorp, Sipho Sepamla lived most of his life in Soweto. 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. 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.

Sipho Sepamla

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.

Sipho Sepamla

Works

Poetry

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

Sipho Sepamla

Novels

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

External links

2 poems

References

1932 births

20th-century South African poets

2007 deaths

South African male novelists

University of Pretoria alumni

20th-century South African novelists

South African male poets

International Writing Program alumni

20th-century South African male writers