His first novel, Broken Earth was published when he was seventeen (under his "Methodist name"), but it was over fifty years until his next publication, a collection of verse entitled Nine Lives.
Tatamkhulu Afrika was born Mogamed Fu'ad Nasif[1] in Egypt to an Egyptian father and a Turkish mother, and came to South Africa as a very young child.
It was here that he first experienced forms of homosexual sex being employed in a state context to intimidate political prisoners, which would go on to become a major theme of his later literary work, as tensions between homophobia and homoeroticism feature largely.
He founded Al-Jihaad to oppose the destruction of District Six and apartheid in general, and when this became affiliated with the African National Congress' armed wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, he was given the praise name of Tatamkhulu Afrika, which he adopted until he died.
[4] Tatamkulu Afrika died on 23 December 2002 shortly after his 82nd birthday, from injuries received when he was run over by a motorist two weeks before, just after the publication of his final novel, Bitter Eden.