James Matthews (writer)

In 2014, Shelley Barry's documentary Diaries of A Dissident Poet, a film profiling James Matthews, premiered at the Encounters Film Festival in South Africa.

On 11 March 2013, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Western Cape. Rhodes University in Grahamstown also awarded him an honorary doctorate, on 31 March 2016.

He was the recipient of a national honour, the Order of Ikhamanga (Silver), in December 2004, for "His excellent achievements in literature, contributing to journalism and his inspirational commitment to the struggle for a non-racial South Africa."

He is a founding member and the patron of the Congress of South African Writers since its inception in 1987.

In 1984, Matthews visited the campus of the University of Iowa and met with students there who, so profoundly influenced by his descriptions of the horrors of the Apartheid regime, would go on to organize thousands of students to occupy the main administration building at Iowa and ultimately convince University authorities to sell off all portfolio investments in companies that were doing business in South Africa.

Awards that Matthews has received include the Woza Afrika Award (1978), Kwaza Honours List – Black Arts Celebration, Chicago (1979), and the Freeman of the towns of Lehrte and Nienburg, Germany (1982).

Matthews through his poetry became "a leading articulator of the Black Consciousness philosophy". In 1972 his first collection, Cry Rage (co-authored with Gladys Thomas), was published. It was banned by the apartheid regime — the first poetry collection to be thus targeted — as would also happen to most of his later works. Matthews was detained by the government in 1976, and was denied a passport for 13 years.

He established the first black-founded art gallery in South Africa (Gallery Afrique) in 1972, and the first black-owned publishing house, BLAC (standing for Black Literature Arts and Culture), 1974–91, which closed as a result of constant government harassment. In 2000, he founded the publishing house Realities.

After leaving school, Matthews had a number of jobs, including as newspaper boy, office messenger, clerk and telephonist; then following the publication of his first writings in 1946, when he was aged 17, he found work as a journalist, over the years contributing to various national publications such as the Golden City Post, The Cape Times, and Drum, as well as the independent community newspaper The Muslim News.

James Matthews (born 24 May 1929) is a South African poet, writer and publisher. During the Apartheid era his poetry was banned, and Matthews was detained by the government in 1976 and for 13 years was denied a passport.

James David Matthews was born to working-class parents in District Six, Cape Town, on 29 May 1929. He attended Prestwich Primary School and then went on to Trafalgar High School in Cape Town. He has said: