Donato Francisco Mattera has been celebrated as a journalist, editor, writer and poet. He is also acknowledged as one of the foremost activists in the struggle for a democratic South Africa, and helped found the Union of Black Journalists and the Congress of South African Writers.

Born in 1935 in the Western Native Township (now Westbury) across the road from Sophiatown, Mattera can lay claim to an intriguingly diverse lineage: his paternal grandfather was Italian, and he has Tswana, Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa blood in his veins. Yet diversity was hardly being celebrated at that time; in one of apartheids’ most infamous actions, the vibrant multicultural area of Sophiatown was destroyed in 1955 and replaced with the white suburb of Triomf, and the wrenching displacement can be felt in Mattera’s writing.

Writing was certainly not an obvious conclusion to his youth, which had been characterized by gangs, violence and jail. Partly under the influence of Father Trevor Huddleston, Mattera began wielding a pen rather than a knife, yet with equal facility; using the struggle as his subject, he went on to produce a series of poems, stories and plays of force and originality. The authorities responded by raiding his house, imprisoning and torturing him, and banning him for ten years. It was during these tumultuous times that Mattera wrote the poems contained in Azanian Love Song. These were followed by plays, an autobiography, children’s writings and more poetry. All this was accomplished while he worked as a journalist for The Star, the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) and other newspapers.