Matsemela Manaka was a visual artist, poet, and playwright who won the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 1987. He used the award to fund a playwright workshop for young authors in Soweto, a township in Johannesburg. He later wrote to PEN saying: “Our playwrights’ workshop was very successful and we hope to publish the playscript immediately after the production for public performances . . . The Freedom to Write Award has made wonders for me. I have received letters from all sorts of hidden corners congratulating me.” Manaka died in a car accident in 1998.
CASE HISTORY
His most prominent plays include Egoli: city of gold, released in 1978, and Children of Asazi, which came out in 1984. Literature in South Africa faced heavy state censorship under apartheid.