Matthew Krouse is a South African writer, artist and onetime theatre maker. He began making performances with a group he co-founded called Weekend Theatre, in an old apartment in Johannesburg in 1982. By 1984 he was well known across the country because a play he co-authored, called Famous Dead Man, scandalized rightwing elements who supported apartheid. The play dealt with the life of architect of apartheid Hendrik Verwoerd, and after a huge show trial with much publicity, the play was banned. Further work in performance led to other bannings and he was detained by the police at an anti-conscription performance. He was a screenwriter on the feature film Shot Down (1985) that dramatized some of his travails with the local censors. He was a co-founder of the City Theatre and Dance Company with the famous Berlin based choreographer Robyn Orlin. In the late 1980s he wrote and co-directed two now-significant, underground short films: De Voortrekkers and The Unknown Soldier. He joined the Congress of South African Writers at the suggestion of Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer in 1990, and became an illustrator, editor and book distributor for a new, integrated post-apartheid publishing initiative. In 1992 he edited The Invisible Ghetto, the first LGBTQ anthology from the African continent. From 1998 until 2014 he was the arts editor of the South African Mail & Guardian newspaper. He has subsequently continued writing and working in the visual arts
