''I Write What I Like'' (full name ''I Write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko'') is a compilation of writings from anti-

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

activist Steve Biko. ''I Write What I Like'' contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the

South African Student Organisation The South African Students' Organisation (SASO) was a body of black South African university students who resisted apartheid through non-violent political action. The organisation was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Steve Biko and Barney P ...

, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. Originally published in 1978, the book was republished in 1987 and April 2002. The book's title was taken from the title under which he had published his writings in the SASO newsletter under the pseudonym Frank Talk. ''I Write What I Like'' reflects Biko's conviction that black people in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the

Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...

that he helped found. The collection was edited by Aelred Stubbs. The book includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the

; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.The introduction is online at the Abahlali baseMjondolo website
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References

1978 non-fiction books 2002 non-fiction books Books about apartheid Political books South African non-fiction books {{Apartheid-sa-book-stub