Mazisi Kunene's 92nd Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates the 92nd birthday of Mazisi Kunene, an anti-apartheid activist and South African poet laureate whose work recorded the history of the Zulu people. 

Kunene was born and raised in Durban, an eastern South African province now called KwaZulu-Natal. As a child, he loved writing short stories and poetry in Zulu. By age 11, he was publishing his writings in local newspapers and magazines. As he grew older, he became a strong advocate for the preservation of indigenous Zulu poetic traditions. His master’s thesis notably critiqued how Western literary traditions were diluting Zulu literature.

At the start of apartheid, Kunene used his works to resist the government’s racist segregation system. When South African government reacted with violence toward the resistance movement in 1959, and exiled Kunene, he fled to the U.K. (and later the USA), where he helped start anti-apartheid movement. During this time, his work was banned in South Africa. 

In exile, Kunene went on to publish monumental works of literature such as “Emperor Shaka the Great,” “Anthem of the Decades” and “The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain.” His work is known for exploring South African culture, religion and history in the context of colonialism, apartheid and slavery. 

In 1975, Kunene became an African literature professor at University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught for nearly two decades. He also served as a cultural advisor to UNESCO during this time. 

Post-apartheid, Kunene returned to South Africa to continue writing in isiZulu. In 1993, UNESCO honored him as Africa’s poet laureate. He later also became the first poet laureate of democratic South Africa. His legacy lives on not only in his poetry, but also the Mazisi Kunene Foundation Trust, which is dedicated to nurturing Africa’s next generation of literary talent. 

Happy birthday, Mazisi Kunene!