{{Infobox writer | name = Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa | death_date = | death_place = | notableworks = A Trilogy:–The Children of Soweto,–The Children of the Diaspora and Other Stories of Exile,–Where There is No Vision the People Perish: Reflections on the African Renaissance;Also, Mzala, My Cousin Comes to Jo'burg and The Race Between the Turtles and Cheetahs (children's book). | website = }} Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane (28 July 1948 – 16 February 2014) was a South African author, poet, and academic. He was described by the late President Nelson Mandela as a "visionary leader and one of South Africa’s greatest intellectuals". Life and work Mbulelo was born in Port Elizabeth, and grew up first in Soweto and then in the Brakpan-Springs area. His mother Flamma Cingashe Nkonyeni was a nurse and his father Canon Joshua Bernard Mbizo Mzamane was an Anglican priest; both were community leaders. His early schooling was in Soweto, and he later attended high school at St. Christopher's in Swaziland, where he was taught by distinguished writer and journalist Can Themba. Mbulelo did his undergraduate education at the then University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS, Roma Campus), obtaining dual degrees in English and Philosophy and a Certificate in education cum laude. He also obtained an M.A. in English from UBLS. He taught at Mabathoana High School in Lesotho before moving to Botswana, from where he was later expelled for political activism. He obtained his PhD in English Literature from the University of Sheffield, England. He held various academic positions in Lesotho, Botswana, England, Nigeria, USA, Germany, Australia and South Africa. In 1976 he was the first recipient of the Mofolo-Plomer Prize for Literature. In 2012 he was the recipient of the African Literature Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, The Fonlon-Nicholls Award, for creative writing, scholarship and human rights advocacy. Mbulelo is also widely known as a writer of fiction and poetry, and his collections of short stories are especially noteworthy. Much of his fiction work was written while in exile and subsequently banned in apartheid South Africa. On 16 February 2014, he died at the age of 65. Activism and exile Mbulelo was an activist against the apartheid government of South Africa. He spent many years in exile in Nigeria and the USA