Keorapetse Kgositsile
| Keorapetse Kgositsile | |
|---|---|
| Born | Keorapetse William Kgositsile 19 September 1938 Johannesburg |
| Occupation | |
| Nationality | South African |
Keorapetse William Kgositsile, also known as "Bra Willie" (born 19 September 1938), is a South African poet and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s, he was inaugurated as South Africa's National Poet Laureate in 2006. Kgositsile lived in exile in the United States from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. He made an extensive study of African-American literature and culture, becoming particularly interested in jazz. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art; he was well known for his readings in New York City jazz clubs. Keorapetse was one of the first to bridge the gap between African poetry and Black poetry in the United States. He is the father of hip-hop recording artist Earl Sweatshirt.
Kgositsile was born in Johannesburg, and grew up in a small shack at the back of a house in a white neighborhood. His first experience of apartheid, other than having to go to school outside of his neighborhood for reasons he did not then understand, was a conflict with a local white family after he fought a white friend of his who hesistated when other friends refused to join a boxing club that denied Kgositsile membership. The experience was a formative one, and joined with other experiences of exclusion that increased throughout his teenage years. For Kgositsile, adulthood meant an entrance into apartheid.
Kgositsile attended Matibane High School in Johannesburg, as well as schools in other parts of the country. During that time he was able (with some difficulty) to find books by Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, and influenced by them as well as by European writers (principally Charles Dickens and D. H. Lawrence), he began writing stories, though not yet with any intention of doing so professionally. After working at a series of odd jobs after high school, he took to writing more seriously, getting a job with the politically charged newspaper New Age. He contributed both reporting and poetry to the newspaper. These early poems, anticipating a lifetime of Kgositsile's work, combine lyricism with an unmuted call to arms, as in these lines from "Dawn":
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