During the Apartheid era his poetry was banned, and Matthews was detained by the government in 1976 and for 13 years was denied a passport.
My father was illiterate and my mother read Oracle and Miracle, two thin paperbacks from the United Kingdom which could hardly be considered as literature....
She agreed and a new world opened to me because public libraries were then exclusively for the benefit of whites....[2]After leaving school, Matthews had a number of jobs, including as newspaper boy, office messenger, clerk and telephonist; then following the publication of his first writings in 1946, when he was aged 17, he found work as a journalist, over the years contributing to various national publications such as the Golden City Post, The Cape Times, and Drum, as well as the independent community newspaper The Muslim News.
[3] He established the first black-founded art gallery in South Africa (Gallery Afrique) in 1972, and the first black-owned publishing house, BLAC (standing for Black Literature Arts and Culture), 1974–91, which closed as a result of constant government harassment.
In 1984, Matthews visited the campus of the University of Iowa and met with students there who, so profoundly influenced by his descriptions of the horrors of the Apartheid regime, would go on to organize thousands of students to occupy the main administration building at Iowa and ultimately convince University authorities to sell off all portfolio investments in companies that were doing business in South Africa.
[3] He was the recipient of a national honour, the Order of Ikhamanga (Silver), in December 2004,[7] for "His excellent achievements in literature, contributing to journalism and his inspirational commitment to the struggle for a non-racial South Africa.