Don Mattera Libri

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.

This anthology of African tales is written with lyrical charm by South Africa’s proclaimed ‘Bard of Liberation’, the poet and author Don Mattera. First published in 1992 by Skotaville Publishers, The Five Magic Pebbles and Other Stories is now republished for a new generation of readers, with original artworks by painter Matthew Hindley. Mattera’s mythical stories reflect the innocence of imagination that is deeply embedded in the social fabric of South Africa, and continues to act as a cultural barometer as the country celebrates its 20th year of democracy. Robin Rhode

Every generation produces its own share of heroes (and sheroes to quote Maya Angelou), who at times unknowingly elevate us; inspire us; provoke us; challenge us; sensitise as well as influence us.Every generation also showers us with witnesses to the adage 'people's person - motho oa batho ka batho - who rise to the occasion by transcending space time; by transcending gender and race; equally by transcending status and place.Lebo Mashile is one of these people, and these are her words.The ancient ones plait their stories into futures for their childrenThe ancient ones they use their hands to heal the backs of broken menAnd I hold a pen for every ancientWho dared not hold a fistAgainst the tyrannyThat sucked the life and hope out of their breasts- An extract from ‘Ancient Hands’

Don Mattera. Aus dem südafrikanischen Engl. von Thomas Brückner ; mit einem Nachw. von Bernard Magubane.