This is a list of noted

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 ...

n poets, poets born or raised in South Africa, whether living there or overseas, and writing in one of the South African languages.

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Lionel Abrahams Lionel Abrahams (11 April 1928 – 31 May 2004) was a South African novelist, poet, editor, critic, essayist and publisher. He was born in Johannesburg, where he lived his entire life. He was born with cerebral palsy and had to use a wheelchai ...

* Tatamkulu Afrika * Mike Alfred * Ingrid Andersen *

Gabeba Baderoon Gabeba Baderoon (born 21 February 1969) is a South African poet and academic. She is the 2005 recipient of the Daimler Chrysler Award for South African Poetry. She lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa, and Pennsylvania, US, and serves as ...

Shabbir Banoobhai Shabbir Banoobhai (born 23 October 1949) is a South African poet. Biography He was born in Durban and, after school wanted to study at University. The costs were prohibitive, and instead he studied to become a teacher at Springfield College. He ...

Sinclair Beiles Sinclair Beiles (b. Kampala, Uganda, 1930 - 2000, Johannesburg) was a South African beat poet and editor for Maurice Girodias at the Olympia Press in Paris. He developed along with William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin the cut-up technique of wr ...

* Robert Berold *

Vonani Bila Vonani Bila is a South African author and poet, he was born in 1972 in Shirley Village near Elim Hospital. He is the founder and editor of the poetry journal ''Timbila'' and directs the Timbila Poetry Project in Shirley Village, Elim in Limpopo P ...

Roy Blumenthal Roy Blumenthal (born in 1968 in Johannesburg, South Africa) has been an active poet since the early 1990s. He is the founder of Barefoot Press, which started out printing free Pamphlet, pamphlets. Five editions were published, with a print run ...

Herman Charles Bosman Herman Charles Bosman (5 February 1905 – 14 October 1951) is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English ...

Breyten Breytenbach Breyten Breytenbach (; born 16 September 1939) is a South African writer, poet and painter known for his opposition to apartheid, and consequent imprisonment by the South African government. He is informally considered as the national poet lau ...

* André Brink *

Dennis Brutus Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 – 26 December 2009) was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its racial policy of apartheid. ...

* Guy Butler * Roy Campbell * Charl Cilliers *

Johnny Clegg Jonathan Paul Clegg, (7 June 195316 July 2019) was a South African musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist, some of whose work was in musicology focused on the music of indigenous South African people ...

Jack Cope Robert Knox ″Jack″ Cope (3 June 1913 – 1 May 1991) was a South African novelist, short story writer, poet and editing, editor. Life Jack Cope was born in Natal Province, Natal, South Africa and home-schooled by tutors. From the age of 12, ...

Jeremy Cronin Jeremy Patrick Cronin (born 12 September 1949) is a South African writer, author, and noted poet. A longtime activist in politics, Cronin is a member of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the National Executive Committee of ...

Patrick Cullinan Patrick Roland Cullinan (21 May 1932 – 14 April 2011) was a South African poet and biographer. He was born in Pretoria into a significant diamond-mining family (his grandfather, Sir Thomas Cullinan, a diamond mine owner, gave his name t ...

* Gary Cummiskey *

Sheila Cussons Sheila Cussons (9 August 1922 – 25 November 2004) was an Afrikaans poet. She was born on the Moravia missionary station near Piketberg, South Africa, and, after matriculating from Afrikaanse Hoër Meisieskool, studied fine arts at the Unive ...

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Achmat Dangor Achmat Dangor (2 October 1948 – 6 September 2020) was a South African writer, poet, and development professional. His most important works include the novels ''Kafka's Curse'' (1997) and '' Bitter Fruit'' (2001). He was also the author of thre ...

Ingrid de Kok Ingrid de Kok aka Ingrid Fiske (born 1951) is a South African author and poet. Biography Ingrid de Kok grew up in Stilfontein, a gold mining town in what was then the Western Transvaal. When she was 12 years old, her parents moved to Johanne ...

* Phillippa Yaa de Villiers * Modikwe Dikobe * Isobel Dixon * Angifi Dladla *

Finuala Dowling Finuala Dowling (born June 1962) is a South African poet and writer. Biography The seventh of eight children born to radio broadcasters Eve van der Byl and Paddy Dowling, Finuala Dowling obtained an MA in English from the University of Cape Tow ...

* I D du Plessis * Koos du Plessis *

Elisabeth Eybers Elisabeth Françoise Eybers (26 February 1915 – 1 December 2007) was a South African poet. Her poetry was mainly in Afrikaans, although she translated some of her own work (and those of others) into English. Eybers was born in Klerksdorp, ...

* Kingsley Fairbridge * Gus Ferguson *

Sheila Meiring Fugard Sheila Meiring Fugard (born 1932 in England) is a writer of short stories and plays and the ex-wife of South African playwright Athol Fugard. Personal history Born in Birmingham, England in 1932, Sheila Meiring moved with her parents to South A ...

* Keith Gottschalk * Stephen Gray * Mafika Gwala

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* Megan Hall * Joan Hambidge * Colleen Higgs * Christopher Hope * Peter Horn * Allan Kolski Horwitz * Alan James * Wopko Jensma * Liesl Jobson * Sarah Johnson *

Ingrid Jonker Ingrid may refer to: * Ingrid (given name) * Ingrid (record label), and artist collective * Ingrid Burley, rapper known mononymously as Ingrid * Tropical Storm Ingrid, various cyclones * 1026 Ingrid, an asteroid * InGrid, the grid computing project ...

Aryan Kaganof Aryan Kaganof (born 1964 as Ian Kerkhof) is a South African film maker, novelist, poet and fine artist. In 1999 he changed his name to Aryan Kaganof. Partial filmography * 1992: '' Kyodai Makes the Big Time'' (91min, Netherlands), drama feat ...

* Anne Kellas *

Keorapetse Kgositsile Keorapetse William Kgositsile (19 September 1938 – 3 January 2018), also known by his pen name Bra Willie, was a South African Tswana poet, journalist and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960 ...

Olga Kirsch Olga Kirsch ( he, אולגה קירש; 1924–1997) was a South African and Israeli poet. Biography Kirsch was born and brought up in Koppies in the then Orange Free State, South Africa. Her father had emigrated there from Lithuania and, though ...

* Koos Kombuis * Rustum Kozain *

Uys Krige Mattheus Uys Krige (4 February 1910 – 10 August 1987) was a South African writer of novels, short stories, poems and plays in Afrikaans and English. In Afrikaans literature, Krige is counted among the '' Dertigers'' ("Writers of the Thirties"). ...

Antjie Krog Antjie Krog (born 23 October 1952) is a South African writer and academic, best known for her Afrikaans poetry, her reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her 1998 book '' Country of My Skull''. In 2004, she joined the Arts f ...

Anton Krueger Anton Robert Krueger (born 28 September 1971, in Phalaborwa, South Africa) is a South African playwright, poet and academic. His plays have been staged in South Africa, as well as in England, Wales, Australia, the USA, Monaco, Venezuela, Argentin ...

Mazisi Kunene Mazisi (Raymond) Kunene (12 May 1930 – 11 August 2006) was a South African poet best known for his translation of the epic Zulu poem '' Emperor Shaka the Great''. While in exile from South Africa's apartheid regime, Kunene was an active suppo ...

Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven (13 August 1873 – 15 July 1932), who published under his initials C.J. Langenhoven, was a South African poet who played a major role in the development of Afrikaans literature and cultural history. His poetry was ...

C. Louis Leipoldt Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt ( ; 28 December 1880 – 12 April 1947), usually referred to as C. Louis Leipoldt, was a South African poet, dramatist, medical doctor, reporter and food expert. Together with Jan F. E. Celliers and Totius (poe ...

* Douglas Livingstone *

Lindiwe Mabuza Lindiwe Mabuza (13 August 1938 – 6 December 2021) was a South African politician, diplomat, poet, academic, journalist, and cultural activist. She was an anti-apartheid activist who went on to serve her country as a member of the first democr ...

* Don Maclennan * Mzi Mahola *

Eugene Marais Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

* Andrew Martens * Lebogang Mashile *

John Mateer John Mateer (born 1971) is a South African-born Australian poet and author. Early life and education He was born in Roodepoort, South Africa in 1971, and grew up on the outskirts of Johannesburg. He spent some of his childhood in Canada, before ...

* Don Mattera * James Matthews * Mzwakhe Mbuli * Kim McClenaghan * Michelle McGrane *

* Joan Metelerkamp * Ruth Miller *

Amitabh Mitra Amitabh Mitra ( bn, অমিতাভ মিত্র) is an Indian-born South African physician, poet and artist, whose paintings depict dramatised stick figures. Education and career Mitra studied medicine and did postgraduate studies in ort ...

Natalia Molebatsi Natalia Molebatsi is a South African writer, poet, performer, editor, and cultural organizer. Biography Natalia Molebatsi was born and raised in the township of Tembisa, near Johannesburg in South Africa.Kobus Moolman * Isabella Motadinyane * Seitlhamo Motsapi *

Casey Motsisi Karabo Moses Motsisi (1932–1977), better known as Casey Motsisi or Casey "Kid" Motsisi, was a South African short story writer and journalist. Biography Casey Motsisi was born in Western Native Township (later Westbury) in Johannesburg in 193 ...

* S.E.K. Mqhayi *

Oswald Mtshali Mr Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (born 17 January 1940) is a South African poet. He has written in Zulu language, Zulu, English language, English, and Afrikaans language, Afrikaans. He studied at Columbia University. He now lives in greenhills. ...

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* Arthur Nortje * D. J. Opperman *

William Plomer William Charles Franklyn Plomer (10 December 1903 – 20 September 1973) was a South African and British novelist, poet and literary editor. He also wrote a series of librettos for Benjamin Britten. He wrote some of his poetry under the pseud ...

Karen Press Karen Press (born 1956) is a South African poet and translator. She was born in Cape Town, and lives in Sea Point, Cape Town, Sea Point. Press is a full-time writer and editor, having published ten collections of poetry, a film script, short sto ...

Thomas Pringle Thomas Pringle (5 January 1789 – 5 December 1834) was a Scottish writer, poet and abolitionist. Known as the father of South African poetry, he was the first successful English language poet and author to describe South Africa's scenery, nati ...

Lesego Rampolokeng Lesego Rampolokeng (born 7 July 1965) is a South African writer, playwright and performance poet. Early life and education Lesego Rampolokeng was born in 1965 in Orlando West, Soweto, Johannesburg. He studied law at the University of the North ...

* Azila Talit Reisenberger *

Robert Royston Robert N. Royston (1918 – September 19, 2008) was one of America's most distinguished landscape architects, based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. His design work and university teaching in the years followi ...

* Gerard Rudolf * Arja Salafranca * Sipho Sepamla *

Mongane Wally Serote Mongane Wally Serote (born 8 May 1944) is a South African poet and writer. He became involved in political resistance to the apartheid government by joining the African National Congress (ANC) and in 1969 was arrested and detained for several m ...

* Steve Shapiro * Ari Sitas * Douglas Reid Skinner *

Adam Small Adam Small (21 December 1936 – 25 June 2016) was a South African writer who was involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and other activism. He was noted as a Coloured writer who wrote works in Afrikaans that dealt with racial discriminatio ...

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* Totius * Ernst van Heerden * Christopher van Wyk *

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (6 January 1906 – 26 October 1947) was a South African novelist, a descendant of the Zulu royal family, and author of Romantic poetry in the Zulu language. Vilakazi was also a professor at the University of Witwate ...

* A.G. Visser *

Wayne Visser Wayne Visser is a writer, speaker, film producer, academic, editor of poetry, social entrepreneur and futurist focused on sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and creating integrated value. Biography Wayne Visser was bor ...

* Gert Vlok Nel * Crystal Warren * Stephen Watson * Mary Morison Webster *

George Weideman George Henry Weideman (2 July 1947 – 27 August 2008) was a South African poet and writer. Born in Cradock, Eastern Cape, he grew up between the Karoo of the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape. He matriculated from Namakwaland High School in ...

Athol Williams Athol Williams (born 20 June 1970) is a South African poet, social philosopher and public intellectual based at Oxford University. Life Williams was born in Lansdowne, Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in Mitchells Plain, the coloured t ...

David Wright David Allen Wright (born December 20, 1982) is an American former professional baseball third baseman who played his entire 14-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career for the New York Mets. He was drafted by the Mets in 2001 MLB draft and made h ...

* Makhosazana Xaba

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See also