By Deirdre Pretorius 

Muziwakhe Nhlabatsi, born in April of 1954, contributed illustrations to the anti-apartheid literary magazine Staffrider, from 1979 to 1987, under the shortened name “Mzwakhe”. [1] His illustrations appeared from the first issue of the second volume in 1979, until the fourth issue of the sixth volume in 1987. During this time, his illustrations graced three covers and he contributed over seventy images to accompany short stories, extracts from books, poems, plays and other texts by well-known authors such as Es’kia Mphahlele, Njabulo Ndebele, Mothobi Mutloatse, Chris van Wyk, Mongane Wally Serote and Andries Oliphant.