From the early poems of Yakhal'inkomo (1972), where the anguish of black life in South Africa becomes compressed into a personal lyricism of unusual intensity, to the epic expansiveness of A Tough Tale (1987), with its directly referential and secular celebration of a revolutionary movement, the career of Mongane Wally Serote spans an important period in the history of resistance and its cultural expression in South Africa over the past two decades. Serote is widely recognized in South Africa and beyond as a leading figure in the generation of writers who emerged in the 1970s (known as the era of "Soweto Poetry"), including Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali, Sipho Sepamla, and Mafika Gwala. This group's work--which includes the collective output of those publishing in Staffrider magazine--inaugurated a resurgence of black literary activity in the country after the chilly silence produced by the banning and exile of the writers of the late 1950s...