Career
He was detained by the apartheid government in 1976, and was denied a passport for 13 years. In 1987, he was elected as patron of the Congress of South African Writers, and he established the first black-founded art gallery in South Africa, and the first black-owned publishing house. In 2000, he founded the publishing house Realities.
In 2014 Shelley Barry"s documentary, Diaries of A Dissident Poet.
A film profiling James Matthews, premiered at the Encounters Film Festival in South Africa. and other Stories (1983), Ravan Press.
