Most central to his oeuvre, however, are, as the narrator in Bird- Monk Seding (2017) says, Black artists with a “social conscience” (Rampolokeng, Bird-Monk 18). One of the most fascinating things that I found about Rampolokeng’s writing when I immersed myself in his oeuvre in 2017 was that I could hear a global gathering of rich echoes of artistic voices: Antonin Artaud, William Burrows, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and, perhaps more faintly, Sarah Kane and even Federico García Lorca. However, although this special issue is an attempt at celebrating and thinking through multiple dimensions within Rampolokeng’s oeuvre, it should only be seen as a momentous force to drive an ongoing conversation about his work and should thus be read as fragments, as ideas, and as beginnings of a more rigorous conversation about Rampolokeng’s work and its significance for South African literary history. The importance of his writing as reflection of struggles of mirror to society is what runs through all articles like a golden thread. The contributors of this special issue deal with other central themes in, and perspectives on, his work, such as the relevance of his early work for the present (Matthew Krouse), a detailed analysis of Horns for Hondo and Rampolokeng’s craft of performing poetry (Andries Oliphant), writing from the margins/the writer as in/ outsider whilst writing from within the centre back to the centre (Olivier Moreillon), the centrality of music and musicality for/in his work (Warrick Sony, Salim Washington, Sam Mathe, and myself). I will primarily engage with three to my mind central issues in his work: lineages and legacies, global Black Consciousness, and gender dynamics/writing women. The themes and concepts that I will attempt to reflect upon are by no means an exhaustive reading of his oeuvre, but rather ideas, sketches, and readings that are to me central in order to make sense of such a multi-layered and complex body of work. My introductory reflections will hopefully provide a glimpse into themes that readers of Rampolokeng’s work have been engaging with and beginnings of new conversations around his work, which we must carry forward on different platforms. The various articles and pieces are attempts at commemorating, reflecting on, and engaging with Rampolokeng’s oeuvre 30 years after the publication of his first book, Horns for Hondo in 1990. This powerful statement has always resonated with me and yet, whilst many full-length studies, special issues, and monographs on Biko and Fanon have been written (at times they have perhaps been over-written), this special issue is the first gathering of words which is primarily dedicated to Rampolokeng’s oeuvre.

In his review of Lesego Rampolokeng’s Bantu Ghost (2009), “Post-Freedom Dreams and Nightmares”, reprinted in this special issue, Mphutlane wa Bofelo aptly writes that “one could not help but come to the conclusion that Lesego Rampolokeng is to literature and theatre what Fanon and Biko are to socio- political analysis and activism.”

Crippled rejex