Mzi Mahola

Mzi Mahola is a South African writer, author and poet. He was born on 12 February 1949, in Claremont near Durban. He grew up between Lushington near Seymour and Port Elizabeth, living the Eastern Cape as Mzikayise Winston Mahola. Mzi Mahola is his nom de plume.

Mzi Mahola started writing poetry by 1969 at Healdtown Training College. In the 1970s he became a member of Black Consciousness Movement BCM and joined Isihlobo, a non-racial youth group. He was detained and interrogated for his political activities and writings. The Special Branch confiscated his first poetry manuscript in August 1975 and he lost interest in writing for three years until he joined COSAW Congress of South African Writers. From that period since writing again, he submitting work successfully to national and international journals, magazines and publications. His work has been published in poems featuring other poets, twenty-eight anthologies. Selections of his work translated to Danish, German, Turkish and Malayan languages.