James Matthews and Gladys Thomas

James Matthews was born in Cape Town in May 1929 and attended Trafalgar High School in District Six before leaving school. A newspaper seller, errand boy, clerk and switchboard operator, he published his first texts at seventeen, was a correspondent for the Golden City Post, then wrote for Muslim News, alongside Imam Abdullah Haron. Close to the Black Consciousness movement, he founded his own publishing house. Detained for several months in 1976 and deprived of his passport for thirteen years, he died in Cape Town on 7 September 2024, aged ninety-five.

In the catalogue 1

• PoetryCry Rage!James Matthews and Gladys Thomas · 1972Literature