I Write What I Like

“This collection of pieces by Steve Biko documents in journey from president of the South African Students’ Organization to influential member of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement. The collection contains letters, papers, interviews, articles, and speeches Biko wrote and presented during a three-year period. The issues covered include African culture, black consciousness, and racial politics relating to apartheid. Also included is a memoir of the editor’s personal experiences with Biko.”—International Journal of African Historical Studies

“[Biko’s] movement fundamentally reordered the objectives of the populist struggles against white oppression in South Africa, which during the 1950s and early 1960s had been largely limited to the formal political realm. . . . I Write What I Like is still relevant today because it confronts a central paradox facing contemporary South African society: that of endorsing cultural differences while embracing a cohesive national culture. . . . [Biko] was able to see the complexities and searing paradoxes confronting South Africa, and he had the fortitude and intellect to construct a formidable response. . . . I Write What I Like stands as a prescient discussion of the dilemmas cause by racial and class exploitation. So it is likely to remain as one of the most important collections of political essays in the history of South Africa, if not the continent.”—Brendan D. Works, Journal of Modern African Studies