EXILE Going Home by Hilda Bernstein

D uring the past year I have been interviewing South African exiles to collect a record of their that sent so many South Africans into exile during the experiences, as part of our contemporary past thirty years. political history. Exiles leave behind them familiar social patterns that I first began interviewing in July 1989, before the enabled them to cope with life. They leave families, possibilities that were opened up in February 1990. often afraid to tell them they were leaving, especially in ’Going home’ was a dream deferred over the years, all the case of the many young men and women who left the more sweet because of its remoteness. with the aim of joining Umkhonto we Sizwe, to get Euphoria burst out when the organisations were military training Leaving in this way haunts them unbanned. For a short, ecstatic period all that my exiles wherever they are. They recall their parents, their could talk about was the possibility of going bacle sisters and brothers, whose absence remains a bitter Then reality crept in, and with it, ambivalence. The presence wherever they go. They leave behind personal doubts, the anxieties, arose from changes that had not belongings that gave substance and structure to their been forseen, from what the years in exile had imposed. lives. They have to find, to build, substitutes for what Emotional and practical problems cast great shadows they have lost. Because of this loss, their sense of over the prospect of going home. expectation is kept alive - the belief in their return. The largest single group of exiles must be the young women and men who left their homes to join the army, Where do they belong, where is home? Umkhonto we Sizwe. And for these, and many more young people who came out in recent years, the Uprooting is typical of our world today, with its problems are logistic rather than emotional. In camps in refugees from wars, famines and disasters, its "guest- various countries in Africa, working at the ANC base or workers” contracted into strange lands, its emigres farm in Lusaka, or at the school and farms in Mazimbu seeking a better life, its exiles escaping repression and and Dakawa in Tanzania, they remain a community of death. South Africans, unassimilated into the host countries, But the South African experience is reinforced by a ready and anxious to return as soon as the problems of double uprooting; internally, three and a half million transport, location and jobs can be worked out. This, of people have experienced the same bitterness of loss of course, is not easy and will be costly both in financial home, community, stability, friends; and been forced and human terms. But these young exiles are not into internal exile. And this reverberates on the external burdened with problems of identity. They have been exiles now that so many of them will be returning. uprooted, but not transplanted. For those who left their How many of them came from places that apartheid homes many years ago, who are dispersed world-wide, has wiped out, from communities that have been who have too often been isolated, not part of a cohesive irrevocably destroyed, from homes that no longer exist? community, the problems of return take on a different Where do they belong, where is home - Winterveld? hue. Crossroads? Dimbaza? Kwandebele? Since I started I have interviewed about 200 people. How This is more than a mere question of place. Home was do I define an exile? For my purposes, it is anyone who the place from which the world could be founded. "In left South Africa because of apartheid, whether they traditional societies,” writes John Berger, ”everything were politically involved or not; and had the intention that made sense of the world was real; the surrounding when they left of returning, even if subsequently they chaos existed and was threatening, but it was so because may have decided to remain in the host country. And it was unreal. Without a home at the centre o f the real, thi; includes as exiles people who were not born in one was not only shelterless, but also lost in non-being South Africa, like Father Lapsley who was hideously in unreality. Without a home, everything was injured by a terrorist bomb in Harare earlier this year. fragmentation.” He was born in New Zealand, but was deported from Contributing to this fragmentation is the fact that so South Africa and feels he belongs to the South African many exiles left as individuals. In this there is a sharp struggle. contrast with Palestinian refugees who were often "An exile is a person who is compelled to leave his uprooted and forced into exile as whole villages, homeland " writes Paul Tabori in The Anatomy of Exile, localities, communities; which has given their exile ”though the forces that send him on his way may be experience a cohesiveness which South Africans lack. political, or economic, or purely psychological. It does So we have had to reassemble the fragments of our not make an essential difference whether he is expelled lives, to compensate for the loss of home and by physical force or whether he makes the decision to community; and for many, the ANC has become the leave without such an immediate pressure." substitute. ”The ANC is my family now ” I have been Even without the "immediate pressure”, the choice told by a number of exiles, female and male. Closeness arises because of apartheid. It is apartheid, not a desire to the ANC mitigates the loss. And this has in turn 2 EXILE

given strength and cohesiveness to the ANC. It fulfils Yes, our exiles learned a great deal. Large numbers more than a political home to exiles. received education that is world’s away from the crippling Bantu Education from which they escaped. Strangers in a strange land Many have specialised. At one time, in the ANC complex at Mazimbu, there were more black architects This need for closeness also explains the sometimes than in the whole of South Africa. Many women exiles incestuous nature of exiles’ lives, for they are seeking feel themselves to have achieved a sense of self- the face of the familiar from their compatriots. It is importance and independence that they know they more than a political commitment; it is an emotional could never have got ”at home.” The cultures of necessity. You are a stranger among strangers in a different countries have enriched our understanding of strange land - but not when you meet together with your our own culture, and the talents of exile South Africans own people. have revealed what is possible when apartheid is a thing So a new generation grows up in exile, those who came of the past. when they were very young with their parents, or who Our host countries have given generously in many were born in exile. They go to British or German, to different ways. Now the most difficult task of all Zambian or Canadian schools. They play with the begins. children of their host country. They assimilate different cultures, learn to speak different languages. Perhaps they have always been aware that they didn’t quite fit in; but they strove to be accepted, so they adjusted Then they grow up, get jobs - marry, and have their own children. Barto la Guma and Eric Singh have German wives. Nandi’s father is Swedish. Serina is married to a Dane. Husbands, wives - they are Zambian, French, American, Norwegian - wherever the exiles went to live, they began putting down new roots. Paul Tabori writes: wThose of my exile friends who would listen I tried to advise by stressing the simple truth that it was very difficult to lead a suitcase life - that after a while they had to unpack, literally and symbolically...” More than anything else, time works on the status of the exile, and so on their own emotional ties. Now we are all faced with the same questions, and for many of those questions we cannot find the answers. When are you going home? people ask. But where is home? And, as though echoing Tabori’s phrase, ”a suitcase life”, a woman whose husband had died in exile and who has been teaching in England for the past twenty-five years, said to me sadly "You can’t just pack a suitcase.” ”1 will go back with the ANC,” another longtime exile Hilda Bernstein is presently researching a book on told me, ”but I know that I’ll be going to a foreign the South Africans experience of exile. She has country.” interviewed South African exiles in many countries Once more, those who have managed to build a family of the world with the intention of chronicling their life in exile are faced with the necessity to decimate that experiences as told in their own words. It is to be a family And in their hearts, those who have lived outside 'human interest' book, exploring the many aspects South Africa for many years, know that they will never of exile such as culture, the experience of children return completely. Yes, physically it will be possible to and women and the politics of exile. In October, return, but it is not possible to cast out those changes she will be coming to The Netherlands to conduct deep within that have come through immersion in a interviews with South Africans who live here. If different country. ”You can't dip your foot in the same you are interested in being interviewed and would river twice,” said one exile. like further information, please contact the Just the same, it is not all loss. For some, exile has SACCC. Alternatively you can speak to Hilda brought positive rewards. ”In exile I didn’t waste time,” Bernstein at the PH31, on 12 October, when she a stalwart 76-year-old said. And this is what many feel. will address the community on her work. It was not wasted, they say, we gained a lot. We made a contribution to the struggle and we learned new things. 3 Friday April 30 1993

There was a time in America, not so long ago, when publishers earned modest sums and liked serious books

That’s publishing!

Joanna Coles ago — are not thought to be wildly grew wilder and wilder as companies exaggerated. outbid each other in competitive “Look,” he says, hauling out an­ frenzy for non-writing celebrities AT THE Four other set of documents and pointing such as Muhammad Ali ($3 million) Seasons restau­ to a bewildering column of figures. or Marlon Brando ($5 million). Simon rant in mid-town “This is how it works. Every book and Schuster led the bidding, win­ Manhattan, New has to contribute 13 per cent of its ning the lion’s share of million-dollar York’s social and budget to corporate overheads.” advances for Ronald Reagan’s autobi­ literary elite are When Bennett Cerf and Donald ography and novels by Jackie Collins mingling gently. Klopfer founded RH back in 1925, it and Jack Higgins. As Dan Green, for­ There in the cor­ was as an emblem of the way Ameri­ mer head of the trade division at ner is Carl Bern­ can publishing — and to some extent S&S, remarked in 1984 to the Wall St stein and over America itself — liked to see itself. Journal: "There is no level below there are Gloria Vanderbilt, Ivana Overheads were restricted to the oc­ which we will not go." Trump, Joan Didion, Robert Altman, casional Olivetti and blue crayon. Literature, as Jacob Weisberg ob­ Diane von Furstenberg, Gay Talese There were no exclusive ranges of served in an essay in the New Repub­ and Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis’s compan­ ergonomically-sound office furniture, lic, had become an afterthought; a ion, a luminous brunette with a and the salaries were street rather garnishing of literary prestige to bracelet tattooed around her left than telephone numbers. Publishers soothe the corporate conscience. wrist, is whining about the lack of earned modest sums and paid them­ Meanwhile, books themselves had Champagne; but if the atmosphere selves in books, happy to know it was become shoddier. Editors, he argued, seems a trifle muted then perhaps a gentleman’s profession. Happy to had abandoned the task of discover­ the guests are reserving their ener­ display a commitment to literature ing the sculpture in the raw stone gies. For this is the first of four par­ and works of social relevance. Happy and were increasingly desperate to ties to celebrate the publication of to use the profits from best-selling discover new authors that would sell. Dominick Dunne’s new novel. trash to subsidise the important Unwieldy manuscripts were passed "Hey Nick,” hollers a large white- d m t"' nairea manmTne author’s direction. sell well and be taken more seriously. “Hey NICK! I loved your book. I loved ND SO RH continued, swell­ Copy-editing declined; Weisberg it.” ing every so often as an­ carried out a spot-the-mistake cam­ “Did you read it?” Dunne calls other imprint was wel­ paign along his own window-shelf back, deftly avoiding collision with a A comed aboard. Alfred A and discovered the protagonist’s vast tray of smoked salmon gliding Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, Crown name spelled two different ways in indeed? After all, if you can flog subsidised this season’s most excit­ across the floor at shoulder height, and the Modem Library. And then AS Byatt’s Possession; five lines 250,000 copies of Josephine Hart’s ing first novelist, Jeff Eugenides. apparently unaided. something happened: the eighties — missing from Lou Cannon’s Presi­ Damage — last year’s sensation — on Straus bridles at the news that “Did I read it?” shrugs the admirer fizzing with acquisition fervour and dent Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime, the strength of publicity promising Harper Collins has just paid $450,000 above the hubbub. “I didn’t read it, bursting with money. Within five and the acknowledgements misspelt “the most shocking, haunting and for Vikram Seth’s epic A Suitable but I loved it. I’m telling ya, I loved years, mirroring what was happen­ in EJ Dionee’s Why Americans Hate erotic novel”, why bother with the Boy. “I’ll be surprised if it sells it.” ing in the UK only on a far greater Politics. real thing? Publishing is a gulp and 40,000.” It is not unusual for people who scale, publishing had changed for­ As Vitale proclaimed, publishers devour business, and the public He was also surprised when mix in publishing circles to love ever, as one after another house was did indeed want to be judged on their needs feeding. Chatto, which falls under the RH um­ books without troubling to read swallowed by huge conglomerates. profits. Forget political, from now on So what if Mehta himself is ru­ brella in London, published the them. Take Alberto Vitale, the stocky RH was folded into Newhouse’s cor­ books had to be commercially moured to have found it a hollow lit­ English edition of one of his books chairman of Random House, Ameri­ porate bosom, Bertelsmann took over correct. tle book? Despite his celebrity status and changed the title from Martin ca’s most prominent publisher, who Doubleday; Paramount, Simon and “The actual writing is the least im­ and the nine-page profiles in glossy And John to Fucking Martin. “They remains voraciously unread. No time, Schuster; Pearson, Penguin and Dut­ portant part,” says Tama Janowitz, magazines, this charming, mournful told everybody that was the origin^ he explained to the staff when he ton; Murdoch, Harper and Row; who swept to acclaim four years ago Indian makes no claim for himself title and that we were too prudish to took' over three years ago. He was MCA, Putnam, (then sold last year to after the publication of Slaves Of other than as a marketing man. And publish. Can you imagine? Us? Too much too busy making money. the Japanese group Matsushita). New York. "It’s all about money,” there is little doubt he is a maestro at prudish? It was all hype. Martin And And why not? Random House has Within a decade, the entire profes­ nods Bret Easton Ellis, who com­ that. He smiles, still fresh from shift­ John was the title of the book.” made a lot of money since it was sion had been transformed into an plains there is nothing for young ing 250,000 copies of this year’s sensa­ None of this is news to Andre Schif- bought by Vitale’s boss, the Ameri­ industry no longer answerable to ec­ people to read these days. “Publish­ tion, The Secret History, a first novel frin who provides the most inspiring can billionaire S I Newhouse, in 1980 centric, moustachioed editors but a ing is very safe and very timid. The by an unknown writer called Donna two-fingers yet to the insidious for $70 million. Today, though the line of corporate accountants. An in­ more editors I meet, the more books I Tartt spread of the Newhouse empire. privately-owned company provides dustry no longer bothered about read, the more my enthusiasm "It was crap, we didn’t even bid for Schiffrin is the one that no one at RH precious little financial detail, it is books but obsessed by a new creed; dims.” it,” roars Roger Straus from behind a ever mentions; his 29 years as head of estimated to be worth around $920 the greater glory of the bottom line. Twenty-one storeys up, the view vase of weary dahlias. “There are the Pantheon imprint is erased from million. No one could read that In came aggressive “techniques”, from Ellis’s editor, Sonny Mehta, few people who know about litera­ corporate memory. Little wonder. amount of books. out went handshaken agreements. head of Knopf, is equally simple. ture in publishing now. These days L’Affaire Schiffrin was the biggest In his freshly refurbished office Authors were pinched from under ‘‘Why should I publish books if they it’s all hype.” upset in American publishing since on the 11th floor in mid-town their editors’ pince-nez. Advances are not going to make money?” Why There is little evidence of visits Salman Rushdie. Manhattan, Harry Evans, once edi­ from a corporate florist at Farrar It began in January 1990 shortly tor of the Sunday Times and now Straus Giroux, home of Tom Wolfe, after Vitale’s arrival. For nearly 50 president of Random House, has Calvin Trillin and Seamus Heaney, years, Pantheon had been unique in made a lot of money too. So has his ‘Why should I and one of the last independent pub­ commercial publishing, providing an wife, Tina Brown, who edits the lishers in New York. The nobbly enclave of accessible, intellectual New Yorker, also owned by publish books if tweed chaise longue suggests the seriousness in an industry going Newhouse and therefore rather office furniture has not been changed blind as one eye strained towards handy for RH reviews. they are not going since the seventies; the Bakelite tele­ Wall Street, the other toward Madi­ “Two million, that’s as high as I’ll phone hints at an even earlier date. son Avenue. It published EP Thomp­ go,” he hisses into the phone, before to make money?’ But Straus does not care, he pub­ son’s The Making Of The English skipping across the office and nearly lishes litteratoore and that’s what Working Class and David Wyman’s knocking over a vase of radiant sun­ Despite his celebrity matters. He nurtures authors be­ The Abandonment Of The Jews. Its flowers in his haste to produce docu­ cause it may, one day, pay off. Look authors included Gunter Grass, Jean mentary evidence that he has now status, Sonny Mehta at Joseph Brodsky and Derek Wal­ Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, had 16 titles in the New York Times cott, who have both won Nobels. Marguerite Duras, Michel Foucault best-seller list for the past 173 weeks. makes no claim for Keeper of the literary tradition, he and Noam Chomsky as well as Monty Harry’s salary does not quite match stays in business by distributing Python, all the works of Studs Terkel the generous offer he has just made, himself other than European publishers and stumbling and Art Spiegelman’s comic exami­ but rumours that he receives around across the odd best-seller. Scott Tur- nation of the Holocaust, Maus. a quarter of that sum — unthinkably as a marketing man ow’s Presumed Innocent sold more New ideas rarely make money; high for a publisher even five years than 750,000 copies and eventually new writers present risks, and Pan- theon was not impervious to market up The New Press. It is Schiffrin’s Andre Schiffrin left Random House vagaries. Sometimes the imprint attempt to stop what he sees as a to set up The New Press. . . ‘Do we went into the red by the odd million, wider, more sinister development want these conglomerates to sometimes it broke even. It was not, across America — the increasing control our access to knowledge?’ however, the greatest of risks for a market censorship of ideas. PHOTOGRAPH: DENIS THORPE billionaire proprietor reckoned to be If the major publishing houses among the five richest men in Amer­ won’t print less than 15,000-20,000 books. The New York Times has ica. But, then, the days of civic virtue copies for fear of losing money, who managed a few more, but its literary were over. will publish the new Chomsky, or editor Rebecca Sinclair admits space Nor was the pressure purely finan­ Hobsbawm or Terkel? True, America for books is squeezed. The Saturday cial. Schiffrin was led to understand is dotted with hundreds of small, aca­ review has been scrapped, resulting that “Random management” felt demic presses, but are new and chal­ in six fewer reviews a week — 300 Pantheon was publishing too many lenging books to be consigned to tiny fewer books a year. She doesn’t have left wing books. Perhaps these could print runs, limited distribution and to mention the tricky relationship be­ be balanced by some right wing vol­ expensive price tags? tween advertising and reviews. Or umes? As Publishers Weekly pointed In effect, The New Press is now the fact that most big publishers pay out in an editorial which incensed doing a sort of BBC2, providing infor­ a discreet “display fee” to the book- Vitale: “True publishers publish mation the market finds unprofit­ chains to exhibit their tomes — what they believe in. In America able; providing work that gets left off which serves to knock the smaller today, the general consensus, as the best-selling agenda such as black publisher even further out of the reflected in the media, is one of com­ and minority writing, political writ­ frame. placent, often jingoistic, enjoyment of ing and analysis, supported by bene­ Fortunately for The New Press, its power. The valuable task of the factors who have guaranteed Schif­ first book, Studs Terkel’s Race, made critic, and the publisher of that critic, frin editorial independence. the New York Times list with sales of is always to question that compla­ The question is, he says, pausing to 70,000. By contrast Aids Agenda, cency and power.” A great society, stroke his tawny beard, “Do we want about Aids and civil rights, will prob­ the article continued, should encour­ these conglomerates to control and ably sell 3,000 copies, as will a book age, not seek to muffle, its critics. limit our access to knowledge and containing top-secret documents on “No true publisher should feel he has information? the Cuban missile crisis. No one else to offer a balance to his customers.” "I think there’s a feeling that the would publish it. In the end, it was the bank balance culture can’t afford the kind of mar­ No one else would publish Laurie rather than the political balance that ket censorship that we’re getting in Lee’s memoirs of the Spanish Civil did for Schiffrin. Vitale was insistent; publishing ... If you say that every War either or Marguerite Duras’s lat­ Schiffrin would have to chop his list idea has to prove beforehand that it est novel, The North China Lover, so by two thirds or else. So Schiffrin can pay its own way, you’re not only Schiffrin picked them up. “We pub­ left. censoring ideas but you’re by defini­ lish the rejects,” he laughs. So did his authors and five senior tion creating a kind of conservative Meanwhile back on E50th St, editors. Studs Terkel and Kurt Von- output. You’re feeding into received where Alfred A Knopf once refused negut donned sou’westers and ideas.” the Scarsdale Diet Book because he manned a picket line in protest. The That mainstream publishing feeds felt it would demean his readers, Bar­ press howled in outrage, Vitale was straight into a received publicity ma­ bara Taylor Bradford has put aside furious, Schiffrin determined. Armed chine also rankles. Little wonder that five days to sign 5,000 copies of her with severence pay, he spent the RH books are regularly reviewed or latest book. And Sonny Mehta following 12 months raising several their authors profiled in Vanity Fair wrestles with how to promote Oprah million dollars from the MacArthur, or Vogue, for Newhouse owns them Winfrey’s forthcoming autobiogra­ Rockefeller, Aaron Diamond and too. “RH has cornered the review phy. Normally her chat show is Andy Warhol foundations and began space,” says Schiffrin. “It’s awash with authors promoting their setting up afresh. Last year, armed stultifying.” books, but then she can hardly inter­ with the resources usually available So far the New Yorker has view herself. only to big commercial houses, he set reviewed one of The New Press’s 30 Or can she? lotions. Hitchms: Magisterial pomposity. ule’, guilty of ‘crowing wit- of the alpha-plus Cape essly’. Hitchens added: imprint, publishers of Julian W hat you owe me is a review, Barnes, Ben Okri and Martin nd a reviewer. ’ Amis. H ow ard’s only crime A bloody corporate ppears to be to have offended upheaval resulted in former itchens who, in a throwaway Vintage director Frances line, concedes that he did Coady being made group make the very mistake with director, with the result that which he was charged. Godwin would lose the free hand he’d had for five years. Creative thinking ‘It was an impossible position for David,’ said a friend. CREATIVE accounting was once a cabalistic art used by The unpleasantness, how­ councils to keep down the ever, was news to many guests rates without slashing spend­ arriving at the Random House ing. Now, apparently, no civil party last week to celebrate servant is expected to do his Godwin’s first five years job without it. there. They discovered to their dismay that they were The Civil Service College attending a wake. Martian has added a course on creative poet and English don Craig accounting to its series of one- Raine was one: ‘How can they day seminars. Its brochure be making such a balls-up? says: ‘The seminar will He’s one of the best editors in explore ways in which infor­ the business.’ mation in published accounts Coady has a problem. may be manipulated, without Already two top publishers, actually breaking any rules.’ Dan Franklyn of Seeker and Applications are flooding in. Warburg, and Peter Strauss of Picador, have turned down Party pooper Godwin’s job. Filling it could DAVID GODWIN, one of take a long time. London’s most esteemed pub­ LORD Jenkins of Hillhead is lishers, has a new job. I under­ regaling Oxford high tables with stand he is to join top literary a new title for his former Gang agents Aitken and Stone. His of Four ally, now embroiled in move follows a Machiavellian Bosnia. ‘He should be called few weeks at Random House, Lord Owen of Split,’ drawls where Godwin was a director Roy. \ O b a /V SUNDAY 6JUNE 1993 THE OBSERVER Profile Tim Hely Hutchinson Bookman who’s good at the books HERE ARE some crude per­ veys of its membership. Hely centages. Around 5 per cent of Hutchinson has topped the hit the British population read parade in the last two. ‘He’s the kind of books reviewed in unusual in combining entre­ the broadsheet newspapers: preneurial flair with an aware­ literary fiction, biography and ness that authors crave to be travel; serious historiography; kept in touch with the fate of political memoirs; critical their books,’ says the society’s essays. They are what is com­ secretary, Mark Le Fanu. ‘So monly spoken of as ‘the read­ his rating is very high.’ Some ing public’. A disprop­ of his authors, however, have ortionate amount of London found his brusque manner publishing activity caters to unattractive. this market for the literature Matthew Evans, chairman of ideas. of Faber, says: ‘Tim’s the Perhaps another 35 per cent smartest guy who has come also read books: formula thril­ into publishing in the past lers; horror stories; trashy decade. The industry seldom beach novels about rich peo­ matches the classic perfor­ ple copulating; gardening, mance ratios of the rest of the cookery, dieting and aromath­ business world. But-he has erapy manuals; coffee-table achieved them. [Headline’s guides to the royal palaces; pre-tax profit last year was an evangelistic tracts; ghosted impressive 12 per cent on autobiographies of celebrities. sales, with a 30 per cent return They please hundreds of on capital employed]. thousands of people, make a ‘Most of the capital for the lot of money for their authors merger has come from the and publishers, and are sel­ City, which is interesting dom mentioned in cultivated because no financial institu­ society. tion wants to invest in pub­ The two sectors have lishing at the moment. It goes always overlapped. Recently in cycles, and we’re in a they have begun to elide. Tim trough. I’d guess that several His young company Headline has swallowed up Hodder ./Photograph by Jane Bown. Hely Hutchinson, whose conglomerates would sell their Headline Book Publishing book publishing divisions now For a cult book on gnomes, of the £1.5 million start-up you would argue that any announced last Thursday that if they were offered the right he imported 500 plastic capital from Rothschild’s, 3i, encouragement to the reading it was paying £49 million for price.’ The Random House gnomes from Germany, had Natwest and the Coal Board habit in the age of electronics the traditionalist firm of Hod- group was reported to have them interviewed on camera pension fund. Headline now could be fruitful, at least der & Stoughton, is the latest lost £6 million last year. at the airport, and persuaded a employs 50 staff in its publish­ among the young. We all in a line of opportunistic mar­ Hely Hutchinson, 39, is Melbourne store to create a ing operation and 124 in its started somewhere, and usu­ keting men to move in on gen­ descended from the Earls of water garden for them in its distribution subsidiary. It is ally not with Finnegan’s Wake. eral publishing houses. His Donoughmore, landowners book department, adroitly valued at £48 million. Hely The percentages that intro­ 1980s predecessors included and political fixers in Tipper­ displacing other publishers’ Hutchinson started with a duced this profile are Hely Paul Hamlyn, whose Octopus ary. The family sold their promotions to make room for fifth of the equity, but diluted Hutchinson’s estimates. ‘That swallowed Heinemann, and property there 10 years ago. it. Back in London, he this rather than incur heavy 40 per cent of the population Anthony Cheetham (now He is the second son of the repackaged the Duchess of borrowing as the firm expan­ is the part we aim at,’ he says. chairman of Orion), whose eighth Earl, who sits in the Devonshire’s book on Chat- ded. He presently owns 7 per Hodder & Stoughton was Century bought Hutchinson. Lords as Viscount Hutchin­ sworth in a large colour for­ cent, and will have 2.5 per launched by Matthew Hodder Hodder Headline, as it will son. mat that carried it and its cent of the merged public in 1868 to publish books on be called, will be the fourth or The composer Victor Hely gossipy star to number one on company, of which he is chief religion, a hot commodity in fifth biggest British publish­ Hutchinson was a distant executive. mid-Victorian England. It is ing corporation (depending on cousin. When Tim was mar­ Seven out of 10 of Head­ by no means decrepit, but has how you do the sums) and the keting the New Grove’s Dictio­ ‘He’s the smartest guy line’s titles are mass-market been weakened by the con­ second biggest independent nary of Music for Macmillan in who’s come into ‘category fiction’ — hard to centration of its equity in the firm after Macmillan. Not bad 1981, he was grieved to find a define without literary conde­ hands of about 120 people, for someone who started a two-paragraph entry about publishing in the last scension, but in essence well- almost all of them descendants tiny company eight years ago him saying: ‘When all is said crafted, plot-driven narra­ of the founding family. Thin­ by doing his own editing, pro­ and done, he left little of decade. ’ tives, low on psychological ning blood and the exclusion duction, promotion and pack­ note.’ He loves horses. His complexity and literary of sceptical and aggressive ing in a couple of upstairs three-year-old, Flaming Mir­ the Sunday Times best-seller sophistication. Money-spin- City institutions reduces the rooms in Knightsbridge. acle (‘named by my brother, list with 30,000-plus copies in ners include: Dean Koontz’s likelihood of adaptation, a Hely Hutchinson is cele­ who said it would be a flaming hardback alone. thrillers with a touch of the pre-condition for vigorous brated for the frugality of his miracle if it ever won a race’), He quit to join Robert Max- supernatural (which average survival by any organism. business, conducted from a came second at Catterick on -well’s -SPEC Hcdder r-seded the thrust of four-storey walk-up in the rag Friday. He is unmarried. director of Macdonald, which Peters’s pre-Umberto Eco new money. trade district behind Broad­ After Eton, where he edited had lost £1.5 million the pre­ mysteries with a medieval Headline also needed Hod­ casting House. ‘Tim has con­ the Eton Chronicle, and Mag­ vious year, was underpricing monk as detective (200,000 in der. With little room for fur­ sistently kept overheads to a dalen College, Oxford, where its books by 40 per cent and paperback); and Josephine ther organic growth, it could minimum,’ says Bruce Hunter he read philosophy and was nine months behind with Cox’s Victorian sagas only expand by acquisition. of the David Higham literary French and edited Isis, he royalty statements. He con­ (120,000 in paperback). The drawback of intensely agency. ‘The high life many joined Macmillan as a trainee. ducted a blitzkrieg, quickly Among past non-fiction market-oriented publishing is publishers lead is out of all Two and a half years in their collecting £1 million in unpaid blockbusters have been: Shir­ the difficulty of building up proportion to the actual prof­ Melbourne office liberated his debts. The firm made £1 mil­ ley Tem ple’s autobiography; backlists because that market itability of their enterprises. dashing Irish spirit and genial lion profit in his first year, Raymond Blanc’s cookbooks; is always in flux. A mass- He doesn’t give lavish parties. taste for outrage. He made his £2 million in his second. M ax­ Debrett on etiquette; and market publisher is like a I doubt that he’s ever seen the reputation with a spectacular well, recognising a fellow buc­ cricket and football annuals. gambler, living from one coup first-class cabin of an aero­ culinary promo for Michel caneer (in this case, an honest Upcoming: National Hunt to the next, with few plane.’ G uerard’s Cuisine Minceur one), gave him less hassle than rider Peter Scudamore’s resources to sustain him when He is popular among many after insisting on the listing of usual. Unlike Cheetham, he irreverent memoirs and Lyn his luck turns. Hodder has a writers, a mutinous, insecure antipodean equivalents for the left in 1986 on friendly terms, Macdonald’s latest foray into lucrative backlist which and underpaid breed. The French ingredients. It sold taking Sian Thomas and Sue the tragedies of the Great includes that all-time soara- Society of Authors conducts 50,000 copies, many more Fletcher with him to found War, either of which would way success, the Bible, and a periodic Which Publisher? sur­ than the British edition. Headline. dignify any publisher’s cata­ flourishing children’s section. They kicked in £300,000 logue. Hely Hutchinson’s accession themselves (£200,000 came None of these titles needs can do nothing but good to the from Donoughmore family apology. But if you were two firms’ authors and no trusts), and obtained the rest going to be solemn about it, harm at all to anyone else. THE SUNOAY TELEGRAPH JULY 25 1993______1______PEOPLE______Adventuress in the book trade Will the Booker Prize winners lose out to the blockbusters? Is literature in danger from Gail Rebuck, the most powerful figure In British publishing?

House lor £64 million The dom Century, and Cheetham its chiel executive, with Re­ buck as one ol his non-fiction editors. Two years later, in 1991. Cheetham - who had fought to preserve Century's identity within the group — was forced to resign. Re­ buck. who knew Cheetham s fate a week before he did. got hit job Last year, the IIQ. Random Century House, w as renamed simply Random Gall Rebuck works at the top of the building in a suite ol offices which she has had redecorated in Tricia Guild style: all lingy lemons and greens. There are books __jt the i» on the phone al- everywhere with bright moil daily to Carmen Callil painterly covers, matching Ibc original model (or high- Ihe bright modem prints on dying women in publishing, the walls who tells Rebuck not lo let She is 41 and tall The first, Ihe buggers get her down. surprising impression is that Some oI tne abuse seems she is shy The second is that provoked simply by the sight she Is good at covering it up. She is married, after all, to ish end of the world's biggest Philip Gould, a media consul­ general publisher. Random tant. and she deploys his House Inc. based in New arts, cajoling the interviewer York Some of It. also, is to do with lines like "the thing you with her manner towards her have got to understand" and stall ("She leaves notes on a courteous "if I may just people's desks saying 'see linlfh" to control the me ." said one former conversation employee.) But mostly, it is But the third and lasting because Rebuck represents, direct with people I don't believe I'm tough. I think It Is Just a problem about the perception of w the unacceptable (ace of modern publishing, which ____ I able to has seen small companies 'Gaif. this is the kinJ oP safil at a meetin»-ol book taken over by giants Ran­ "I am completely commit- return we're looking for.' On shop managers the other day. dom House » the generic the other hand. 1 don't see They were saying that their name lor a lot ol Famous why we should lose a lot of clients can't afford £14 99 (or imprints, including Jonathan money Sheer inefficiency is a new hardback novel and Cape. Bodley Head, Virago, often the re*»on." (Before preferred these paperback Chatto Ic Windus. Century, Rebuck, another publisher originals for £1199 " " 1 and Hutchinson remembers, two Random picks one of them up. a hefty The latest storm over Re­ imprints. Chatto looking volume with a des­ buck has been provoked by igner black-and-white cover the resignation ol David God­ "They said their clients liked win. who was the managing them as style objects Their r replacing her former director ol Cape. Godwin was words not mine, but I can mentor and boss. Anthony furious because a change in relate to what they are Cheetham? “Yes,” she says. the hierachy effectively She denies ("Rubbish! and it lelt terrible. What made him answerable lo a that Random House willnc. " fie ? job, she . says, is t; can I say?" She does not. became very Interested. new division, merging hard­ favour only the big paper- manage however, accept that it was When her birthday came up back and paperback fiction back writers who can make lively as possible", treacherous to replace some­ and I asked her what she money. Certainly, she says. "You say sensitively one who had mortgaged his wanted, she said "an office, His resignation unleashed ‘There are things that I have had to when big advances are paid "Yes. because books aren't house to start up Century, just like yours", and three a number ol newspaper arti­ Barbie doils. And I thought cles which warned that Brit­ do th at I feel deeply uncom fortable out, then the paperback cans of baked beans. Each whose fortunes then made ish publishing Is becoming people —who stump up most one has a complex, delicate___ her a fortune and got her Into that was joyous, that she of the cash — will expect a set of relatlonsfiii aspl- Random in I he first place wanted dolls lo dress up. but paperback-led about. But I haven't done them on return. But unknowns will rations. I don't th also had this who' whim, but for the greater good’ nurtured, ride roughshod __ s —which Is why I resent tury bad been thi a'nd so on"so she'gc Ihe implication that 1 do " changes over sevi current best-selling five. "You have a reputation (or was no longer a Random House UK Is for the being tough with people." circle. Too mud first time in Ihe black. Trade it in her blood: her father ran dog-eared paperbacks in her shock in ten years'til a tailoring business inherited bag — then it seems a cool But if she is right. I from his lathrr. au immi­ authors are still bei-.UHH I Managing Director of Cape grant from Latvia — as she says — interest in tured. that nothing has really resigned and ha* now been “ started work, after books as publications. Is that changed, then why all the replaced by two of the most iting from Sutsex in such a vice? Yes. say her crit­ criticism? Why the headline! senior figure* in literary pub­ fntellec..octual History, as a ics. because it means she about her like "Gail Warn lishing. The old-fashioned ...... -holder in Antiquarius In ing" or "End of Chapter'"* on-the-page editors who l.ondon. selling second-hand "Products?^ She smiles. "I don’t think I said pub­ work closely with the clothes, but took a secre­ "It's a fallacy to think that lishing hasn't changed I say authors are still there This tarial course to get a proper the great names who ran some publishers haven't it what is ignored In articles job. Publishing was simply small independent publish- changed, and whenever very full of opinion. Ihe first offer that came mg houses sat in dustv there is a little change, there in facts along, but she say* It was offices surrounded by manu­ is an enormous outcry. But The facts, though, a perfect, because the hat scripts which they would publishing isn't Just about y. T a ke tinalways pretty.----- y. TakeTake tinalways the way always loved books. occasionally send out, saying acquiring books. It is about la wnirn Rebuck got her job Many say the doesn't. this one's ready to be pub­ marketing them. Look al f as chief executive. It had "She's not a book Idealitt." lished In fact, in my experi­ situation now Teh years ai . been held by one Anthony said a publisher Another, ence. they were extremely there wasn't a Watersfones. Cheetham . who In 1982 who hat stayed at her hou*e canny and sharp, probably We have got lo take that oi started a publishing com­ in Marbella (paid for out of better than any finance man­ board We re talking aboil the £1 million she made Irnm ager I have today in watching selling books in super­ pany called! “ ...... ‘ markets now We have to ' small U foiling Gail the saie of Century lo Ran­ where the money went." dom). say*, "I don I remem­ "As It so happens." she relentless in finding n ber fier talking about books adds, "we are moving into oiire while we were there I profitability, But no one that "Something very interest- Southern African

‘tR .e tiie o V '

Vol. 5r No 4r Issue 26 July/August 1993 R5,00

1*

I k U U l 'U U '

iM M P i (-'-J C o i f if;* 2 i;i C entury

/ M xiiij u c i e «* Ci jJu otly A hm ivr lit VVoi'k

' ■ „ . ■ SOUTHERN AFRICAN CONTENTS Review of Books

6 Russell Street, Woodstock 7925 Cape Town, South Africa. Tel: (021) 462 2012 Fax: (021) 461 5407

3 Patrick Bond Platform for Investment by Frankel Max Poliak E ditors: Rob Turrell, Randolph Vigne Assistant Editor: Lisa Combrinck Vinderine; Sanlam; Ernst & Young; and Human Designed by: Rob Turrell Production consultant: Neeran Naidoo of Talking Text Sciences Research Council Editorial Board: Zoe Wicomb, Hugh Lewin, Menan du Plessis, Ampie Coetzee

South Africa: Prospects for Successful Transition Southern African Review of Books (ISSN 0952-8040) edited by Robert Tucker and Bruce Scott Vol. 5, No 4, July/August 1993 Appears bi-monthly. Managing Change: A Guide to the Role of In the next issue: Business in Transition by Consultative Business K.J.McCracken on Livingstone Movement Terry Ranger on Zimbabwe Ian Phimister on mining history Alma Hromic on Stephen Gray Mont Fleur Scenarios, Institute of Social Luke Alfred on popular fiction Cover. Photograph by Rashid Lombard Development, University of the Western Cape Zwandile, age 13, a Nyanga youth who makes wire cars which he sells to locals in the area. Growing Together, Professional Economic Panel SOUTHERN AFRICAN RESIDENTS should send their subscriptions (R25,00) to our Cape Town postal address: PO Box 13094, Sir Lowry Road 7900. 5 Randolph Vigne Past Personal Annual subscriptions for NON-SOUTHERN AFRICAN RESIDENTS are £15 (US$30/DM 45) for individuals and £30 (US$60/DM90) for institutions. 8 Bill Freund Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said Add £9 (US$18/DM27) for airmail to all countries. Send subscriptions to our German office: Stemtalerweg 33, 89077 Ulm, Germany. 10 Hilda Bernstein ‘Discovering Exiles’ Tel: (+49) 731 38 82 72; Fax: (+49) 731 50 23 467 * London office: 53b Cornwall Gardens, London SW7 4BG, Tel: (+44) 71 937-1402 13 Peter Horn Rediscovery of the Ordinary. Essays on South

African Literature and Culture

by Njabulo Ndebele

15 Lance Nawa Poem: ‘Ode to a Pilgrimage’

16 Sarah Nuttall Screens Against the Sky by Elleke Boehmer SARoB (1987-1991) An Immaculate Figure by Elleke Boehmer Back Issues on /Microfiche Back issues of the Southern African Review of Books are now available on microfiche. Many 18 Shimmer Chinodya an interview of our past issues are out of print and micro­ fiche is now the only form in which to acquire a full set. 19 Robin Hallett Patriots by Sousa Jamba Apply to Rob Turrell, Stemtalerweg 33, A Lonely Devil by Sousa Jamba 89077 Ulm, Germany. Tel: (+49 731) 38 82 72 Fax: (+49 731) 50 23 467 21 Keoraptese Kgositsile ‘Language, Culture and Visas to the 21st Century’ The New African (1962-1970) Complete set on microfiche 22 Elaine Salo My Life in the Struggle by Maggie Resha A complete set of the New African (53 issues) and Desiree Lewis A Life’s Mosaic by Phyllis Ntantala is now available on microfiche. Pioneering political and literary review, banned in Cape Town and then published from London. 24 Lewis Nkosi US Diary Apply to Randolph Vigne, 53b Cornwall Gardens, London SW7 4BG, Tel: (+44) 71 937-1402

SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS July/August 1993 £ cenario planning’ brain- ously calculate on gaining more than it storms have become com- will lose by attempting to eliminate monplace in the new South opponents’. Africa. Pierre Wack of Shell Oil in Paris is the ‘doyen’ of corporate sce­ nario building. A decade ago he began the fad at 44 Main Street, Johannes­ Scenario burg — Anglo American Corporation headquarters — where he helped fore­ cast global geo-politics. By 1993 two of South Africa’s other huge conglom­ erates — Old Mutual and Sanlam — Plundering Looking for a metaphor for the polit­ had also sponsored scenario-planning ical deal, P la tfo rm wavers between documents projecting versions of South ‘stressed but sustained power-sharing’ Africa’s political and economic future. (also known as ‘separate bedrooms’) Scenario planning is closely allied to and ‘co-operative alliance’ (‘separate strategic planning and the study of iso­ Rearranging the deck chairs on the beds’). Somewhere in the same bed­ lated ‘mega-trends’ which affect the room — with the Nats presumably operating environment of business. S.A. Titanic? PATRICK BOND compares comfortably in bed, the ANC on the Are such exercises merely attempts floor — exists the likely outcome: to discern the capitalist class-interest of several economic scenarios of South ‘forced marriage’. But, asks Platform, the most enlightened (or most exposed) ‘Will power sharing gain mass accep­ firms? Perhaps not. What is of great Africa's future tance?’ Although rank-and-file voters interest to the casual observer is the are ‘politically moderate’ and support evolution of the scenario plan from ANC-Nat power-sharing, the answer is corporate survival strategy to social- flights of flamingos, lame ducks and Investment, has been credited in the no, as grass-roots activists in the ANC contract parable. It is this feature I ostriches (the University of Western press mainly to Sanlam, but was also ‘react against compromises by their want to explore, because it is here that Cape Mont Fleur Scenarios), and even erected by the stockbrokers, Frankel leaders’. pernicious social myths are bom and the divergent paths of Apollo, Max Poliak Vinderine (Sidney Frankel What response, then? There are with­ bred. Beginning in late 1990 successive Challenger and Soyuz (the National served as chair), the accountants, Ernst in the unemployed masses ‘people of generations of scenario plans have typ­ Housing Forum Scenario). Most sce­ & Young, and that still-tainted Pretoria revolutionary sentiment, but these peo­ ically been brought to the public’s nario planners let racy metaphors over­ parastatal, the Human Sciences ple are found among the employed and attention first by excited rumours of the whelm nuts-and-bolts policy calcula­ Research Council (HSRC), led by among students as well. Therefore planners’ arduous, behind-closed-doors tions. ‘The plan lacks integrity in the Professor Schlemmer. The Platform s panic measures and high risk strategies bull sessions; then by selected leakage presentation’, writes the UCT econo­ conservative foundation stone is this to address unemployment which are to the business press (often by hushed mist, Nicoli Nattrass, in her evaluation principle: ‘We will not fall into the not sustainable are inappropriate’. reference to the confidential, highly- After all, ‘it is not the downtrodden, sensitive nature of the process); next by starving “down and outers” — the reference to the impressive and diverse worms that turn — who start revolu­ collection of new South African elites Platform for Investment tions, but people who await a better life who enthusiastically received early but then suddenly find their aspirations viewings of the scenario results; then by Frankel Max Poliak Vinderine; Sanlam; Ernst & Young; frustrated. Most unemployed people through more presentations to sundry and Human Sciences Research Council have depressed aspirations’. So, hints audifeiTcSs "in the corporate netw ork; (forthcoming, 1993) Platform, just ignore them. and finally through the ubiquitous The ANC’s moderate leaders will video package and in print. South Africa: Prospects for Successful Transition probably hold steady, and ‘highly dis­ Who is doing this cutting-edge PR edited by Robert Tucker and Bruce Scott ruptive redistributionist strategies are work, and why? In mega-corporations unlikely’. Business and labour will dis­ which consider social engineering a Juta, Kenwyn, 1992 cover a ‘corporatist’ outcome, since logical extension of marketing, you can ‘Cosatu’s socialism is generally non- often identify semi-charismatic indi­ Managing Change: Marxist and moderating’. To this end viduals: Clem Sunter, Bob Tucker and A Guide to the Role of Business in Transition the National Economic Forum ‘will be Lawrence Schlemmer, from the Anglo, by Consultative Business Movement as important as a political settlement. Nedcor/Old Mutual and Sanlam pro­ Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1993 Business must be at the bargaining jects respectively. And big business has table. Work single-mindedly to pro­ not been alone in the field. After mote the forum and to protect its influ­ Tucker’s mid-1990 breakthrough into Mont Fleur Scenarios ence on policies’. And promote com- the progressive intelligentsia, it wasn’t Institute of Social Development, pradorism: long before there was a rush to sce­ University of the Western Cape, 1993 nario planning by assorted characters Once in an interim government the and institutions of the Left and Centre- Growing Together ANC’s close association with the labour left. As Heribert Adam and Kogila movement and with progressive NGOs Moodley comment in The Negotiated by Professional Economists Panel will have to be loosened, allowing it to Revolution (Ravan Press; University of Nedcor/Old Mutual, Johannesburg, 1993 become more balanced in its approach. California Press, 1993), ‘All these were There is already a close working relation­ useful exercises in opening the ship between the ANC, the World Bank, apartheid mind among whites and the Development Bank of Southern blacks alike. Political scenarios can Africa, the Consultative Business challenge frozen mental maps and Movement and other organisations which stimulate alternative, innovative of the first Nedcor/Old Mutual scenar­ traps of alarmism or emotionally-dri- are painstakingly pointing out the longer thoughts and policies for coping with io s, South Africa: Prospects for ven simplification’. Indeed, the worst run costs of many redistributive strate­ apartheid’s fallout’. Yet increasingly Successful Transition, in the Innes nightmare is that continuing economic gies. the scenario exercises reflected the Labour Brief. ‘The road show dazzles decline may appear to ‘necessitate des­ desire of the masters and carefully rather than informs, sensationalises perate, quick fix policy measures’. The One may disagree with components, hand-picked participants to come up rather than analyses, and constructs message is simple: calm down. yet the whole has a consistency that is with a deal — rather than with good false expectations by not drawing out Since ‘external [international] pres­ admirable. There are, certainly, gaping analysis. As a result the universal char­ the full implications of what is pro­ sure on the major parties is formida­ flaw s in P latform ’s construction; for acteristic of scenario planning is a fail­ posed’. Contrast this with Cyril ble’, a negotiated settlement between example, of the 130 prominent inter­ ure to grapple with problems which are Ramaphosa’s back-cover blurb: ‘This the ANC and the National Party should viewees, just five were Africans. And going to be very hard indeed to resolve. book provides a sanguine yet unroman­ have sufficient fibre to withstand fur­ while P latform ’s central tenet is that Cliche-ridden scenarios have become tic glimpse into future possibilities’. ther internal decay. Revolutionary ‘the future is not as black (sic) as it increasingly stylised and niche-market­ agendas are powerful ‘but losing impe­ seems’, this strikes me as telling busi­ ed. The vocabulary levitates from low * * * tus and risk being sidelined’. As a ness what it wants to hear, rather than and high roads (Sunter’s The W orld result, ‘fragmentation and chaos’ can what it needs to consider. Notwith­ and South Africa in the 1990s, Human The most recent and painfully honest be avoided by the simple recognition standing their certainty about the and Rousseau, 1987) to encompass of the scenario efforts, Platform for that ‘no major power faction can seri­ resilience of the upcoming deal — a

July/August 1993 SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS

Collection Number: A3299 Collection Name: Hilda and Rusty BERNSTEIN Papers, 1931-2006

PUBLISHER:

Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive Collection Funder: Bernstein family Location: Johannesburg ©2015

LEGAL NOTICES:

Copyright Notice: All materials on the Historical Papers website are protected by South African copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, or otherwise published in any format, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Disclaimer and Terms of Use: Provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein, you may download material (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal and/or educational non-commercial use only.

People using these records relating to the archives of Historical Papers, The Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, are reminded that such records sometimes contain material which is uncorroborated, inaccurate, distorted or untrue. While these digital records are true facsimiles of paper documents and the information contained herein is obtained from sources believed to be accurate and reliable, Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand has not independently verified their content. Consequently, the University is not responsible for any errors or omissions and excludes any and all liability for any errors in or omissions from the information on the website or any related information on third party websites accessible from this website.

This document is part of the Hilda and Rusty Bernstein Papers, held at the Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.