Cosmo Pieterse

Who is Cosmo Pieterse?

Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist.

Pieterse went to the University of Cape Town and taught in Cape Town until leaving South Africa in 1965. He was banned under the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1962. He subsequently taught in London and at Ohio University in the United States: arriving at Ohio University in 1970, he became a tenured faculty member in 1976. However, after travelling to meet his London publisher in 1979 he was denied re-entry to the US on classified information, allegedly for being "a suspected communist".

Pieterse edited several anthologies of plays and poetry for the African Writers Series published by Heinemann.