We were saddened this morning to learn of the death last night of John Matshikiza, South African actor, director, producer, playwright, poet,  journalist and regular columnist on the Mail & Guardian.

Son of the musician, composer, and one of the first writers for Drum Magazine, the late Todd Matshikiza, John was born in Johannesburg in 1954 but, in 1960, moved with his parents to London where he trained in drama and also worked in theatre, television and film. His family banned from South Africa under the apartheid regime, he was finally able to return home to Johannesburg in 1991. Among his many film roles, he played the part of Mapetla in Cry Freedom, of Walter Sisulu in Mandela, and most recently of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana in Shake Hands with the Devil (2007).

June, on behalf of the Museum of London, commissioned John to write a play for the 2007 bicentenary of the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade. He duly delivered the wonderful Turning the Tables, a manic intellectually dazzling cascade through the history of humankind from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the Songhai empire, Great Zimbabwe, the Andalusia of Tariq ibn Ziyad, the revolutionary Haiti of Toussaint Louverture, all to the music of Archie Shepp and Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

John and I shared a love of jazz, and I took mischievous glee in introducing him to pieces by Archie Shepp, Eric Dolphy, Pharoah Sanders, and others, that even John–a jazz aficionado–hadn’t heard before.

John was a modest and humorous man, a kind and gentle soul, an intellectual as much as an artist, politically astute and–as witnessed by his journalism–very much his own man. We feel privileged to have known him, and very sad at having lost a friend.

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