Gladys Thomas

Gladys Thomas (1934-2022) was a South African poet and playwright. Thomas was one of the first black South African women poets to be published. Her co-authored debut anthology, Cry Rage, was the first book of poetry to be banned in South Africa.

Quotes

 * To write was a need; I had to write down messages, to tell apartheid's horrors.
 * Women's day with Gladys Thomas, Julie Marchand, Canalblog, (9 March 2010).


 * I always imagined poetry is supposed to be beauty, about beauty and pleasant things. Well I sat in a train one day and saw this lorry full of furniture going, coming here... and I wrote a poem about Group Areas ‘Fall tomorrow.’ In the last stanza I wrote, that the government of that time is going to fall [ ]. This was about the anger. Bringing out all the anger of moving and seeing this people moving and seeing people breaking up their wardrobes and their cupboards because it can’tfit through the doors here.
 * Lau78 Life Histories, Sean Field, UCT Libraries, (between December 2009 and January 2010).

Quotes about person/work

 * Rooted in Salt River, Simon’s Town and Ocean View, Gladys Thomas’s narration of the struggle of a nation for freedom challenged the construct of ‘forgotten communities’. She championed the tribulations and triumphs of people who did not have the means to tell their stories in the distinctive and memorable way in which she took up their plight.
 * President Cyril Ramaphosa, SAnews.gov.za, (6 April 2022)