[2] During the literary explosion among black writers that followed the Soweto uprising in 1976 van Wyk published a volume of poetry, It Is Time to Go Home (1979), that won the 1980 Olive Schreiner Prize.

[2] The book is characterized by the preoccupations of other Soweto punanis such as Mongane Serote, Sipho Sepamla, and Mafika Gwala and employs the language of defiance and assertion in poetry that reveals at all times the Black Consciousness of the era.

His latest work Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch details childhood memories about growing up in Riverlea and his colourful interactions with the men and women who lived the African proverb that "it takes a village to raise a child".

From 25 January to 24 February 2019, a one-man play entitled, Van Wyk: The Storyletter of Riverlea, was performed by Zane Meas at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.

At a graduation ceremony on 27 March 2019, van Wyk was posthumously awarded[4] the degree of Doctor of Literature (DLitt) (honoris causa) by the University of the Witwatersrand.