Lebogang Mashile

Lebogang Mashile (* 1979 in the USA ) is one of the most important poetry performers in South Africa .

Lebogang Mashile's topics are spirituality, identity, gender and the socio-political conditions in South Africa. With her publications and appearances she has played a key role in shaping the younger female poetry of South Africa. In 2003 she co-founded the Feela Sistah! Spoken Word Collective , which quickly became very popular. In 2004 she made her debut as an actress in the multiple Oscar nominated film Hotel Rwanda . In 2008 she played the only female role as Mmabatho in the stage adaptation of K. Sello Duiker's novel The Quiet Violence of Dreams at the National Arts Festival . In 2009, together with the choreographer Sylvia Glasser , she produced Threads , a performance combining poetry, dance and music to celebrate the 30th birthday of the internationally award-winning Moving into Dance Company . In 2006 she received the highly endowed NOMA Prize , which is given annually to African writers, for her first volume of poetry, In a Ribbon of Rhythm , published in 2005 . In 2010, a first volume of poetry was published in German under the title Töchter von Morgen , which also contains the poem In a Ribbon of Rhythm and a CD on which Lebogang Mashile reads all of the poems contained in the volume himself. Lebogang Mashile lives in Johannesburg .

Works

• In a Ribbon of Rhythm (2005)
• Flying Above the Sky (2008)
• Daughters of tomorrow . Poems. Translated from English by Arne Rautenberg . German / English, with CD. (2010)