"Prof Adam Small has occupied a unique and inimitable place in South African literature, academia and culture. At a time when the apartheid government sought to use Afrikaans as a tool of oppression, Prof Adam Small storve to decolonise the Afrikaans language.
Through his poetry he asserted the language as a langauage of the pople and as a language through which the oppressed could articulate their particular vantage point in the world and claim their freedom."
"In this way he gave voice to a sense of cultural belonging in a idiom rooted in the way people lived and interpreted their lives. His body of work spoke in the cadences and the rythms of the people and he extened the cultural imaginary of South Africa literature."
"Of Prof Small must be said what Sekou Toure wrote, when he observed that: "To take part in the African revolution it is not enough to write a revolutinary song; you must fashion the revolution with the poeple."
"We salute Prof Small for his exceptional contribution. New generation must pick up the baton from where he has left it. Our heartfelt condolences go to the family, his friends and all who knew him," concluded Minister Mthethwa.
