DOCSLIB.ORG

From Soweto to Goree: a South African Writer in Search of the African Heritage

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From Soweto to Goree: a South African Writer in Search of the African Heritage GEOFFREY V . DAVIS From Soweto to Goree: A South African Writer in Search of the African Heritage I've never regarded South Afiica as something different and isolated. I have always seen it as part of the whole continent, and with so much in common with the continent. NADINE GoRDIMER I Two of the more interesting publications of recent years on South African litera­ ture have been Crossing Borders. Writers meet the ANC,2 a verbatim account of a meeting held at the Victoria Falls in 1989 at which writers from inside the country and from exile came together to discuss the place of literature in a future, liberated South Africa, and Spring is Rebellious,3 which documents the debate provoked by Albie Sachs' - by now notorious - paper on "Preparing ourselves for freedom," in which he suggested that it was time to foresake the notion that culture could be a "weapon of struggle." From the former here is an exile, Baleka Kgotsitsile, speaking on the need to create a new literature for children: We as South Afiican writers must address the issue of creating a literature that is South Afiican, and that is based on an acceptance that South Africa is an African country ... a literature that identifies with the rest of Afiica, and that sees it as a positive thing to be in Afiica. (p.121) From the latter here is a response to Sachs' proposal from an academic, Betty O'Grady, who suggests that it is time for South Africans to foresake what she terms "the weight of West em aesthetic criteria." She writes: It is difficult to see the way ahead, for the effects of decades of isolation and cul­ tural deprivation have taken their toll. Yet perhaps we do not need to look too far "Writing in Afiica: Nadine Gordimer Interviewed. Stephen Gray and Phil du Plessis (1972)." Conversations with Nadine Gordimer, eds. Nancy Topping BazinlMarilyn Dallman Seymour. (Jackson, London, 1990), p.59. First published in New Nation, September 1972. 2 Crossing Borders. Writers talk to the ANC, eds. Ampie Coetzee/James Polley. (Bramley, 1990). 3 Spring is Rebellious. Arguments about Cultural Freedom by Albie Sachs and respondents, eds. Ingrid de Kok/Karen Press. (Cape Town, 1990). 26 GEOFFREY V: DAVIS afield. Now is the time to take advantage of the relaxing political restrictions and to open up channels of communication with our fellow Africans to the north of us ... South African writers need to see themselves as an integral part of the whole African continent. By tapping in to the vast experience and resources of those countries who have trod the path before us, new forms of expression may be forged, capable of conveying the uniqueness of the South African experience" (pp.128 and 130). "Isolation and cultural deprivation" certainly - the effects of censorship, of the exile of writers, and of the cultural boycott. The draconian provisions of laws such as the Suppression of Communism Act and the Publications and Entertainment Act passed in the 1950s and 60s, by which government sought to impose apartheid legislation on cultural activity, endangered writers' physical existence through harassment, curtailed their freedom of expression, or rendered the pursuit of a literary career - financially as well as artistically - almost impos­ sible through the wholesale banning of their works. Many left the country, among them Lewis Nkosi, Bloke Modisane, Alex La Guma, Bessie Head, Es'kia Mphahlele and Nat Nakasa. Their fates were often tragic; some committed sui­ cide, others died in obscurity. After the Soweto uprising of 1976 more writers left the country - Mongane Wally Serote's departure for Botswana is one example. Over the years a literature of exile came into existence consisting of works written by exiles before leaving, published abroad and banned in their own COun­ try, as well as - increasingly - works written from exile. For many years the entry of these texts into South Africa on any large scale was effectively prevented. A particularly disastrous effect of government-imposed bans and of exile was the temporary dismemberment of the black literary tradition: younger writers were cut off from their cultural history. What Steve Biko called an "arrested image" of black culture was created. Young writers found themselves beginning their literary careers with little knowledge of the work of previ.Jus generations. Thus Matsemela Manaka had no knowledge of the works of LaGuma, Mphahlele and Serote; Serote, for his part, had no access to the writings of Masizi Kunene or of Dennis Brutus; Sipho Sepamla railed at being denied the opportunity to read the work of Lewis Nkosi or of Can Themba. Over the long years of the apartheid regime South Africans were deprived not only of their own literary tradition but also of that of the wider African continent. The combined effects of the cultural boycott, which prevented African artists vis­ iting South Africa, and of censorship within the country itself, rendered most of the writing of independent Africa inaccessible to black South Africans. When, after 1976, opposition to apartheid began to mobilise, the liberation movements intensified their armed struggle, infiltrating the country from the out­ side, while internally a new black trade union movement organised and civics of all kinds formed the United Democratic Front, all this affected the sphere of cul-.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Afterword to Preface to Witchcraft
    Hermēneus. Revista de Traducción e Interpretación Núm. 6 - Año 2004 Afterword to Preface to Witchcraft Craig MacKENZIE Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburgo Bessie Head wrote this short autobiographical piece as a preface to her story about witchcraft in Serowe, Botswana, the town that she made her home after leaving South Africa for political reasons on a one-way exit permit in 1964. The story and its preface appeared in the American magazine Ms. in 1975, two years before “Witchcraft” was gathered into Head’s collection of Botswana village tales, The Collector of Treasures. “I am most unhappy in unholy places,” she notes, before observing that “Southern Africa may be the unholiest place on earth.” Much of the piece is devoted to her bitter remarks about racist practices in South Africa: the white man, she says, “took even the air away from us.” What she values about Botswana, in contrast, is its strong sense of historical continuity –of African values, roots, and beliefs. It is significant, however, that she implicitly includes Botswana in her judgement that “Southern Africa may be the unholiest place on earth”, because her stay in that country was not an easy one. Her observation that the government of the newly independent Botswana had “an extremely hostile policy toward South African refugees” is a halftruth, at best. In 1966 the fledgling state had to find a way of living alongside its more powerful and increasingly coercive and belligerent neighbour. Pace Head, Botswana provided a haven for South African political refugees for over two decades, and, by a process of diplomacy and tact, managed to keep its aggressive neighbour at bay before emerging in the post-apartheid era as one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous nations.
    [Show full text]
  • Bessie Head: a Tribute
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Online Kunapipi Volume 8 Issue 1 Article 8 1986 Bessie Head: A tribute Agnes Sam Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Sam, Agnes, Bessie Head: A tribute, Kunapipi, 8(1), 1986. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol8/iss1/8 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Bessie Head: A tribute Abstract Imagine a woman, placed where she has no sense of her real identity — perhaps orphaned at birth without surviving relatives, or removed from her parents. Place such a woman where the individual is defined, first by her race — 'Bantu' — European — Indian — then, remove from her a sense of racial belonging: i.e. make her the child of one White and one African parent. Then imagine this woman writing creatively, always fearful of the knowledge that the White mother she had never known had died in a mental asylum. This journal article is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol8/iss1/8 AGNES SAM Bessie Head: A Tribute Imagine a woman, placed where she has no sense of her real identity — perhaps orphaned at birth without surviving relatives, or removed from her parents. Place such a woman where the individual is defined, first by her race — 'Bantu' — European — Indian — then, remove from her a sense of racial belonging: i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of Bessie Head's Writings As a Survival Strategy
    Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs A living life, a living death: a study of Bessie Head’s writings as a survival strategy Thesis How to cite: Atkinson, Susan D. (1998). A living life, a living death: a study of Bessie Head’s writings as a survival strategy. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 1998 The Author Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.00004970 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk A LIVSXG LIFE, A LXVIlilG DEATH: A STIJDY OF BESSIE HEAD’S WRIT’IBGS AS A SURVIVAL STRATEGY SUSAB I). ATKIBSON, B.A. (HOBS), M.A. THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE OPEN UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, 31 MARCH 1998 LIBRARY AUTHORISATION FOI#M d rd t Please return this form to the The Research Degrees Centre with th; 'Wpb- of your I 2; - - t thesis to be deposited with the University Library. -- All students should complete Part I. Part 2 only applies to PhD students. J , Part 1 Open University Library Authorisation [to be completed by all students] I confirm that I am willing for my thesis to be made available to readers by the Open University Library, and that it may be photocopied, subject to the discretion of the Librarian.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    s o u A Quarterly of the Volume XVIII, Number 2 April 1999 that my father worked in their stables and took care of Bessie Head* their racehorses. Interviewed by Lee Nichols INTERVIEWER: Bessie was taken from her mother at INTERVIEWER: The writer I'll be talking with on this birth, she told me, and raised by foster parents until she program1 is an extraordinary woman and an extraordinary was thirteen years old. Then she was placed in a mission writer. Bessie Head is a South African refugee who has orphanage. Her mother had asked that some of her own made her home in Botswana. She's one of the first non­ money be set aside for Bessie's education and when the white South African women to become known on the mother died, a sum of money was made available and world literary stage. She's written three major novels­ Bessie got a high school education in the orphanage where When Rain Clouds Gather, Marn and A Question of Power-­ she remf1illed until the age of eighteen. It was while she as well as a number of short stories. Her novels range was growing up in South Africa that the seeds of her from the pastoral life of rural Botswana to one so violent, writing career were planted. so puzzling, that it caused widespread controversy. I visited Bessie Head in her adopted village of Serowe, a two HEAD: I feel that a love of books is a kind of inborn hundred sixty-mile drive from the Botswana capitol of thing, you know, when you've sort of got a fascination Gaborone.
    [Show full text]
  • Corwin Dissertation
    IDENTITY, DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE IN BESSIE HEAD’S TRILOGY by CORWIN LUTHULI MHLAHLO Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: MS E G KANE NOVEMBER 2002 2 IDENTITY, DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE IN BESSIE HEAD’S TRILOGY SUMMARY This dissertation seeks to explore the perceived intricate relationship that exists between constructed identity, discrimination and violence as portrayed in Bessie Head’s trilogy from varying perspectives, including aspects of postcoloniality, materialist feminism and liminality. Starting with a background to some of the origins of racial hybridity in Southern Africa, it looks at how racial identity has subsequently influenced the course of Southern African history and thereafter explores historical and biographical information deemed relevant to an understanding of the dissertation. Critical explorations of each text in the trilogy follow, in which the apparent affinities that exist between identity, discrimination and violence are analysed and displayed. In conclusion the trilogy is discussed from a largely sociological perspective of hope in a utopian society. Key terms: identity; discrimination; construction and representation of identity; utopian; self; gender; hybridity; feminism; emotional torment; postcoloniality ************************************ 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE SUMMARY 2 CHAPTER I Introduction 4 The Origin of Racial Hybridity, Discrimination and Violence 9 The Politics of Identity 10 Defiance and Struggle against Racism 13 CHAPTER 2 Identity Explored 16 Storm Brewing: Identity-based Discrimination 33 From Discrimination to Violence 54 CHAPTER 3 An End to Identity Crises 65 Self and the Establishment of Utopia 70 Conclusion 74 Bibliography 77 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 81 4 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The existence of racism and racialism into the latter decades of the last millennium saw, one could argue, a marked increase in the world’s awareness of the representation of varying identities and their construction.
    [Show full text]
  • 1414 African Writers Series
    African writers series: celebrating over 40 years of African literature Part 1 NEVILLE ADONIS New arrivals in the African writers series (contemporary writers) are Assistant Director: General Services Tom Naudé with his Dance of the rain and Daniel Ojong with his Mysteries from Ayukaba Village. he purpose of introducing the African writers series is to high- Driven by the popularity of the series, a list of Africa’s Best 100 Books light the literary value and the impact of African literature on the was introduced. Rigorous criteria were applied, which included the political systems of countries in Africa in the continuous struggle assessment of quality, the ability to provide new information and the T extent to which a book breaks boundaries. The list comprises 100 for freedom and democracy. This article will run as a two-part series with the final Africa top 100 best books of Africa depicting the impact of African writing on world Best Books of the 20th Century appearing in part two. literature. Considering the criteria, a surprising number of South African The African writers series comprises a classic collection of literary authors and their books were selected. They include: Elsa Joubert with fiction, short stories, poetry, translations, drama and non-fiction written Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena; Nadine Gordimer with Burger’s by authors of African descent. These books have literary value and daughter; Wally Serote with Third World express; Alan Paton with Cry, are mainly used as setwork material in schools. Widely published the beloved country; Nelson Mandela with Long walk to freedom; by Heinemann since 1962, this series recently celebrated its 40th Eugene Marais with Die siel van die mier and Antjie Krog with Country anniversary.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconstructing Masculinity in the Postcolonial World of Bessie Head
    Reconstructing Masculinity in the Postcolonial World of Bessie Head EARL G. INGERSOLL A xX MAJOR CONCERN IN both of Bessie Head's short story collections—The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales ( 1977) and the posthumously published Tales of Tenderness and Power (1990)—is the reconstructing of masculinity in the postcolonial context of her adopted home, Botswana. This con• cern with reconstructing paradigms of African manhood is, of course, not unique to Head's short fiction. In her appealingly optimistic first novel When Rain Clouds Gather (îgbg), Head offers one portrait of the new African male in Makhaya. In addition, the eponymous hero of Maru (1971), along with Maru's rival in love, Moleka, extends Head's gallery of new Africans. Finally, what can reasonably be termed a preoccupa• tion with revisioning the masculine occurs outside her fiction in her study Serowe: Village of Rain Wind ( 1981 ). In contrast to many other feminists who believe that women will never achieve total liberation until they separate themselves from their oppressors, Head was intent upon directing her fic• tion toward the reimagining of the masculine as a first step toward developing a new vision of relationships between women and men. She was committed to a mode of fiction that might transmit a new construction of the African male, or what occa• sionally seems a reconstruction of an older mode of masculinity. For Head the development of this new vision had a particular urgency for Botswana in 1966 because her adoptive homeland had just became an independent nation. As she surveyed the impact of generations of colonial domination on African men and the opportunism licensed by the postcolonial atmosphere in Botswana in the years following its independence, she was struck ARIEL: A Reviejo of International English Literature, 29:3, July 1998 96 EARL G.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing Bessie Head in Botswana: an Anthology of Remembrance and Criticism
    Writing Bessie Head in Botswana: An Anthology of Remembrance and Criticism Edited by Mary S. Lederer Seatholo M. Tumedi 1 i Originally published by Pentagon Publishers Gaborone Botswana ©2007 Contributors Original design and layout by Waterstone Publications This edition ©2020 Contributors Subject to the following conditions, this electronic book may be freely reproduced and distributed for non-commercial purposes. The entire book must be reproduced and distributed, without alteration, including alteration of format. Copyright and all other rights including the right to republish commercially or otherwise in any form remains for each contribution with the author thereof. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. First edition (print) [2007] ISBN 978 99912-434-1-2 Second edition 2020 ISBN 978-99968-60-18-8 (e-Pub) ISBN 978-99968-60-19-5 (pdf) Bessie Head photo courtesy of Khama III Memorial Museum P./Bag 8 Serowe Botswana ii Acknowledements The editors wish to thank the following for their support of this project: the English Department of the Universityof Botswana, Bruce Bennett, Maitseo Bolaane, Tom Holzinger, Ray Seeletso and Gabriel Matshego of Pentagon Publishers, and of course all the contributors for their patience in bringing this project to completion. “Character, Role, Madness, God, Biography, Narrative: Dismantling and Reassembling Bessie Head’s A Question of Power” by David Kerr was was originally published in Marang Special Issue 1999: Proceedings of the Conference “Language, Literature and Society: A Conference in Honour of Bessie Head, Gaborone 16–19 June 1998” (1999): 191-98. It is reprinted here with kind permission of the author.
    [Show full text]
  • Womanhood in Bessie Head's Fiction Ellinetie Chabwera
    J. Humanit. (Zomba), 2 !, 200718 Womanhood in Bessie Head's fiction Ellinetie Chabwera Bessie Head, a South African woman who lived in Botswana, was a prolific writer whose literary interest centred on the lives of black people. Her interest addressed and challenged the marginalised lives of black people who were victims of apartheid. Later when she settled in Botswana, Head found the ethnic division in Botswana to parallel the racial segregation of South Africa. In When Rain Cloud~· Gather ( 1969), Maru ( 1972) and A Question of Power ( 1974 ), Head addresses and deals with the racial tension in both South Africa and Botswana. Yet as is the case in most literature by black women from Africa and the Caribbean, women and women's issues are also fundamental to Head's narratives. Like writers such as Erna Brodber, Olive Senior, Buchi Emecheta or Ama Ata Aidoo, Head portrays several strong, resilient and resourceful women. In addition however, her narratives also depict mentally fragile women. Through these diverse female characters, Head explores women's socio-cultural conditions, roles and disadvantages and more significantly, she celebrates their achievements. The focus on women challenges their oppression but also reinforces Head's vision of an ideal environment in which all humans, regardless of gender, race and class, will live in harmony. In the world she envisions, love and reverence for other humans is fundamental. Despite this political concern, it is documented that Head was always reluctant to accept the title of feminist: 'I am not a feminist( ... ) in the sense that I do not view women in isolation from men' (Eilersen 1995: 238, quoted from Khama Memorial Museum (KMM) 44, Bessie Head Papers (BHP) 26.01.1981 and KMM72, BHP 19.19.1982, Serowe, Botswana).
    [Show full text]
  • Instances of Bessie Head's Distinctive Feminism
    L. J. Rafapa, A. Z. Nengome Instances of Bessie Head’s and H. S. Tshamano L. J. Rafapa is an Associate Professor distinctive feminism, womanism in the Departement of English Studies, and Africanness in her novels University of South Africa. E-mail: [email protected] A. Z. Nengome and H. S. Tshamano are associated with the University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Instances of Bessie Head’s distinctive feminism, womanism and Africanness in her novels Bessie Head was one of the Drum writers of the 1950s. As critics such as Huma Ibrahim have indicated it was only after her death in 1986 that she was included in discussions on the Drum generation. The result of her prior exclusion has been the double marginalization of Head’s literary contribution, as one of the overlooked black South African writers of the 1950s and the lack of critical acclaim of her as an individual author. For this reason, she is one of the black South African writers who should consciously be given prominence today. This article utilizes an analysis of Head’s novels not attempted so far. It is difficult to interrogate Head’s work fruitfully, unless questions are addressed to whether she approaches her imaginative writing as an Africanist, a feminist or just as a woman. It will be argued that her fiction highlights the plight of the socially marginalized in eccentric and seminal ways and that it bears the potential to enrich debates on Africanism, feminism and womanism.
    [Show full text]
  • Wretched, Ambiguous, Abject
    WRETCHED, AMBIGUOUS, ABJECT: ORDINARY WAYS OF BEING IN SELECTED WORKS BY ALEX LA GUMA, BESSIE HEAD, AND J. M. COETZEE A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Susanna Drbal June 2005 This thesis entitled WRETCHED, AMBIGUOUS, ABJECT: ORDINARY WAYS OF BEING IN SELECTED WORKS BY ALEX LA GUMA, BESSIE HEAD, AND J. M. COETZEE BY SUSANNA DRBAL has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Evan Mwangi Assistant Professor of English Leslie A. Flemming Dean, College of Arts and Sciences DRBAL, SUSANNA. M.A. June 2005. English Wretched, Ambiguous, Abject: Ordinary Ways of Being in Selected Works by Alex La Guma, Bessie Head, and J. M. Coetzee (92 pp.) Director of Thesis: Evan Mwangi This is an exploration of the possibilities for political literary resistance in South Africa. Alex La Guma’s In the Fog of the Seasons’ End, Bessie Head’s Maru, and J. M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K, uncover the daily performance of national, ethnic, and racial affiliations that result in a shared experience of alienation, masks, and shifting allegiances. Rather than relying on the tradition of the “protest” novel, these authors move into the realm of what Njabulo Ndebele calls “the rediscovery of the ordinary.” In applying Frantz Fanon to La Guma’s novel, the depiction of the wretched conditions of oppressed life showcase a variety of human reactions to oppression. Using Homi Bhabha’s idea of “national narration,” Head’s Maru emerges as a search for national belonging, while Julia Kristeva’s abjection serves to illuminate the mystical regression of Michael K in Coetzee’s novel.
    [Show full text]
  • Serowe at the Dawn of the Swaneng Era the Birds Woke up Long Before
    2220 words Prologue: Serowe at the Dawn of the Swaneng Era The birds woke up long before the sun and proclaimed the day, a warm and lazy 11 February 1963. A few hours later a group of 28 excited school students filed into a single room on the eastern edge of Serowe. They had in part constructed that classroom themselves. Many were already adults. Against the odds, they were about to start Form 1. There was no ceremony to mark the launch of a new institution. The rough classroom stood on a dusty hillside, gripped by all the drought, poverty, and political uncertainty of the waning Bechuanaland Protectorate. But the hopeful students and the school's founders knew that they had launched a brave project with big ideas: Swaneng Hill School. The night before the opening, King Moshoeshoe II of Basutoland had visited the school, accompanied by Kgosi Rasebolai Kgamane. The first man had been enthusiastic, the second one had not. A fortnight went by before the next notable visitors came, Kgosi Linchwe Kgafela of the Bakgatla and the writer Naomi Mitchison. They gave the school their full backing at once. "Naomi," wrote the principal later, "happily agreed to talk to the class and kept them attentive for two hours with her views on the similarities of Scottish and Tswana ways of life, and on development strategies aimed at benefiting the population as a whole while trying especially to uplift the most needy... I hoped some of them might one day put her ideas into practice."1 Despite the unknown future, the thoughtful among the 28 knew that they were making history.
    [Show full text]