Ndebele, Njabulo (Simakahle) (1948– )

South African writer and critic who, despite a relatively modest literary output, has had a significant impact on South African writing. In the 1980s he published a series of highly influential essays criticizing the black South African literature of the 1970s and 1980s for its preoccupation with urban political protest. His poetry has been published in various literary journals, and his one volume of fiction, Fools and Other Stories, appeared in 1983.

Ndebele's poems have appeared in a selection of black South African poetry entitled To Whom It May Concern (1973). His essays were collected in the volume Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture (1991). He has held posts in several universities, including the University of Lesotho 1975–90, where he was professor of English and deputy vice chancellor.