Don Mattera

Don Mattera ( born November 30, 1934 in Johannesburg (according to other sources: 1935 ); actually Donato Francisco Mattera ) is a South African writer and journalist. He has won numerous awards and is known for his fight against apartheid.

Life

Matteras grandfather was an Italian who married a Xhosa from the east of the former Cape Province. Don matteras father was classified as Italian. His mother belonged to the people of the Batswana. Don Mattera was born in Johannesburg today Westbury Western Native Township,, . Under the apartheid system, he was classified as Coloured.

Mattera was adopted by his paternal grandparents and attended a Catholic boarding school in Durban. At 14, he returned to Johannesburg and went to live in Page View. Later he moved to the neighboring district of Sophiatown, then a cultural center, especially the blacks in South Africa. There he was the leader of the gangsters The Vultures ( German: The vultures ).

He became politically active against the regime and was banned from 1973 to 1982. Three years he was under house arrest. He was repeatedly tortured. Mattera was a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement and joined the African National Congress Youth League in. He participated in the founding of the Union of Black Journalists and the Congress of South African Writers. He was also a member of the National Forum, a foundation of the Azanian People's Organisation, which was more radical than the opposition movement United Democratic Front. 1987 his autobiography Memory is the Weapon was released, which is especially of his time in Sophiatown.

Mattera worked as a journalist for the South African newspaper The Star, The Sunday Times, The Sowetan and The Weekly Mail. He trained numerous South African journalists and was co-founder of the publishing house Skotaville. Mattera was converted to Islam and is known for his extensive community involvement in his hometown, the Johannesburg district of El Dorado Park. So he initiated the Harvey Cohen Centre for mentally and physically handicapped children and support the reintegration of ex-prisoners. The texts in the 2000 musical premiered African Footprint are poems matteras. In 2003 he was a jury member at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

Mattera has nine children.

Awards

Works

Plays

  • Street Kids
  • Apartheid in the Court of History
  • 1983: Kagiso Sechaba
  • 1983: One Time Brother (1984 banned )

Prose

  • Memory is the Weapon, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1987, ISBN 0-86975-325-8
  • Gone with the Twilight: A Story of Sophiatown. Zed Books, London, 1987, in the U.S. as Sophiatown: Coming of Age in South Africa
  • The Storyteller. Justified Press, 1994, ISBN 0-947451-16-1
  • The Five Magic Pebbles. Skotaville, Johannesburg 1992, ISBN 0-947479-71-6
  • Sophiatown. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-87294-628-5 ( compilation of Memory is the Weapon and Gone with the Twilight )

Volumes of poetry

  • Azanian Love Song. Skotaville, Johannesburg 1983, ISBN 0-620-06628-8
  • Exiles Within. The Writers ' Forum, 1984
  • The Heart of Love. AVS, 1997
Italians Xhosa people Tswana people PEN International World Health Organization Order of the Baobab
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