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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Mazisi Kunene, the first poet laureate of a democratic South Africa whose works recorded the history of the Zulu nation, has died at age 76.
Kunene also played a leading role in the anti-apartheid movement while in exile. It was during his time outside South Africa that he published poems such as "Emperor Shaka the Great", "Anthem of the Decades" and two anthologies, "The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain" and "Zulu Poems."
A memorial service will be held for Kunene on Oct. 12 at UCLA, where he taught African literature for nearly two decades. Kunene died Aug. 11 in a hospital in Durban after a long battle with cancer, his family said.
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