Mazisi Kunene

Mazisi Kunene was born on May 12, 1930, in Durban, a South African province now called KwaZulu-Natal. Kunene began writing poetry in the Zulu language as a ...

At this time, he was also a cultural advisor to UNESCO. He continued to write in exile, and his work is known for exploring South African culture, religion and history, especially in the context of colonialism, apartheid and slavery. Growing up, he became an advocate for preserving Zulu poetic traditions.

His work explores his nation's culture, religion and history in the context of colonialism, apartheid and slavery. Mazisi Kunene was a South African poet ...

He later also became the first poet laureate of democratic South Africa. By age 11, he was publishing his writings in local newspapers and magazines. He wrote some of his seminal works in the UK, where he fled into exile after the South African government violently repressed the resistance movement.

A doodle of the anti-apartheid activist was put on the company's homepage on Thursday morning highlighting his work in resisting the racist apartheid ...

A doodle of the anti-apartheid activist was put on the company's homepage on Thursday morning highlighting his work in resisting the racist apartheid regime. A doodle of the anti-apartheid activist was put on the company's homepage on Thursday morning highlighting his work in resisting the racist apartheid regime. Mazisi Kunenes poetry was so powerful that the apartheid government originally banned his work in South Africa. Still, he became South Africas first poet laureate.Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles)

Today's Google is dedicated to anti-apartheid campaigner Mazisi Kunene, who would have turned 92 today.

He returned to South Africa once apartheid ended, where he resumed his writing in Zulu and was named Poet Laureate in 1993. His postgraduate thesis at university examined the dilution of Zulu culture in Western literature, and by the time apartheid broke out in South Africa, he was in a position to employ what he had learned thus far to fight the terrible division. He’s from Durban, South Africa’s third largest city, and at the age of 11 he was contributing poetry and short tales to his local newspaper.