James Matthews was born on 25 May 1929 in District Six in Cape Town. Affectionately described as ‘a great South African people’s poet’; his first anthology titled Cry Rage (co-authored with Gladys Thomas) became the first collection of poetry to be banned by the Apartheid regime.
Matthews is the first black person to have established an art gallery (Gallery Afrique) in South Africa, and is the first black to have established a publishing house (BLAC Publishing House 1974 -1991).
In 2013 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Western Cape, and recently in 2016 he was awarded him an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University in Grahamstown.