Artist in Exile: Mongane Wally Serote (Poet Laureate of South Africa) with Dr. Christel N. Temple

Photo Courtesy: Wally Serote

This October, City of Asylum is honored to welcome South African Poet Laureate and celebrated author Mongane Wally Serote to discuss his literary oeuvre and experience as an activist and author. Additionally, Mr. Serote will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Soweto rebellion, sharing notes about his friendship with the activist Steve Biko and other members of the Black Consciousness Movement—and drawing parallels to the Black Power Movement and Black Lives Matter Movement in the USA.

This program will be followed by a public reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks for all artists and attendees.

About the Author:
South African poet and novelist Mongane Wally Serote grew up under apartheid in Sophiatown, now a white suburb of Johannesburg. Politically active, he was held without trial in solitary confinement for nine months under the regime’s Terrorism Act. Serote was barred from reentering South Africa in the late 1970s after earning an MFA at Columbia University while on a Fulbright scholarship. He lived in Botswana before settling in London. One of the Soweto “township” poets, Serote writes poems that speak directly to social activism and resistance. His numerous poetry collections include Yakhal’inkomo (The Cry of Cattle at the Slaughterhouse, 1972), No Baby Must Weep (1975), Third World Express (1992), and History Is the Home Address (2004). His novels include (1981) and Revelations (2011). Serote’s honors include the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize, and the Chilean government’s Pablo Neruda Award. He has also served as a member of the South African Parliament.

About the Moderator:
Dr. Christel N. Temple is Professor and former Department Chair of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She specializes in cultural memory, cultural theory, comparative Black literature, the intersection of History and Literature, and Pan-Africanism. She is the author of five books. Black Cultural Mythology introduces a new conceptual framework for African American cultural memory. Literary Pan-Africanism is a study of the creation of African American characters in African literatures. Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise highlights the distinctiveness of the discipline of Africana Studies’ priorities in literary criticism. Finally, she has a critical anthology of Black world literature and is co-editor of Muhammad Ali in Africana Cultural Memory, which is an academic cultural memory exploration of the sports hero. She has dozens of published articles, chapters, and shorter works. These include a reference piece on the South African play Woza Albert! by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon. South Africa also appears in her teaching repertoire. In her course on “Black Nobel Peace Laureates,” she facilitates the study of autobiography and memoir of Albert Luthuli, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela. In her course on “African Literature” she has taught Zakes Mdwa’s novel Ways of Dying and Sindiwe Magona’s novel Mother to Mother.  Excerpts by poet Dennis Brutus and novelist/prose writer Bessie Head are also included in her literary anthology.

About Your Visit:
The in-house restaurant, Cucina Alfabeto, is open for brunch from 9:30 to 2 p.m. and for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Please visit OpenTable or call 412-435-1111 to make a reservation.

Freedom to Create Gala:
This October 9 at 6 p.m., we will celebrate City of Asylum’s annual fundraising event, the 2026 Freedom to Create Gala. Featuring Mongane Wally Serote as our keynote speaker. Learn more and reserve your seat.

Special Thanks to our 2026 Gala Sponsors: