Poets

Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali was born in Kwabhanya (Vryheid), KwaZulu-Natal in 1940. After completing secondary school in he went to Soweto hoping to study social work. Apartheid legislation prevented his enrolment but he studied via correspondence, obtaining a diploma with Premier School of Journalism and Authorship, affiliated to London University. He worked as a messenger in Johannesburg, drawing on his observations of the city to write the poems that became his first collection, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum. Published by Lionel Abrahams of Renoster in 1971, with a foreword written by Nadine Gordimer, this book went on to become the best-selling poetry book in South African history.