lleke Boehmer has written two Fiction sharply focused novels: each E have heroines who are charac­ terised by passivity, their failure to see, and to act, beyond the confines of their white South African lives. Boehmer explores her characters with often Restricted Vision acute subtlety and by writing the kinds of books she does slips the boundaries which have frequently confined South African writing. They are richly lay­ ered texts, alert to the many resonances SARAH NUTTALL traces continuities between Elleke Boehmer's of Boehmer’s subject, and they con­ front some of the challenges of writing two novels which explore the limits of white women's lives in about ‘restricted vision’. I will talk about her new book, An Immaculate South Africa. Boehmer raises the question: is innocence simply F ig u r e , after looking at her first, Screens Against the Sky. a lack of knowledge or can it be implicated in guilt Annemarie, the narrator in Boehmer’s first novel, lives in her own little white South African world. mother and daughter, the way they the way for new writing more auda­ ties, Boehmer’s own story moves Growing up in a suburb of a segregated knock against each other, rather than cious and flamboyant, as Boehmer has beyond them. She offers her text as town in South Africa, she reads the warmly bond. Once they have moved said, in its concerns. only one reading, signalling the limits time away — and writes in her journal. to a flat in another town, they sit and Boehmer hints at literary ‘enclo­ of her own vision by refusing to name, She is bound up with, but also bound in read together in an a-historical vacuum. sures’ which she seeks to escape: she and therefore contain, ‘South Africa’ in by, stories: they are a means of escape, The radio is turned off at news time deliberately writes against the guilt and her text. Yet Boehmer also walks a nar­ bringing her contact with a different and so is the TV because, Sylvie says, row tightrope: the enclosure of world, but they also enclose her, pro­ ‘it shows the bad in the world too Annemarie’s existence which she so viding a substitute for action. clearly ... Reading at home, you learn vividly creates means that Boehmer’s more than you ever would elsewhere’, text is narrowly focused, its energies and Hoopstad, anyway, ‘lacks history’. spent on the portrayal of passivity and Annemarie walks ‘a little way in the lack of response. In her next novel, direction of the township’ outside though it contains many of the same Hoopstad, but feels she must get home themes, Boehmer widens her focus, to her mother. She also walks to the and takes many more risks. compound at the back of the clinic where she has a job ‘to have another n An Immaculate Figure, the heroine Annemarie makes several attempts to look at things’, but is reprimanded for under-reads the world, or possibly break out of her sheltered life but they her trespass. When Adrian, who by Ireads it and is not saying. This is at are always limited, too tentative to Annemarie’s standards counts as a least the potential promise of the story, amount to much. She decides to ‘take friend, gives her a suitcase for safe­ and the hope the reader holds_ out. the affairs of the nation to heart’ by keeping, she does not know that it con­ Rosandra White is a young white copying out newspaper reports and tains illegal anti-apartheid pamphlets. South African woman who has grown writing them into her journal. ‘The Her mother finds out, however, and up in Cradock, where she wins the reading made all the action and was insists that they dump it on the rubbish local beauty competition, and has the exciting enough’, she says. When pile outside the building. Soon after potential of becoming a national or Simon the gardener reacts to the news this incident, and the disruption it has Elleke Boehmer international model. She is perfect, of Steve Biko’s death — announced on caused, they again leave town. immaculate, and apparently vacuous, the piece of newspaper Annemarie has ‘seen totality’ which has characterised gliding over the surface of things, reg­ brought him his lunch on — she realis­ oehmer has written a story about the liberal South African novel, and istering little or giving nothing away. es there is a whole other story of which enclosure, and failure to escape. she refuses to write an unambiguously To Jem, her childhood friend who has she knows nothing. This is an ‘item of BAnnemarie again and again returns to‘woman’s novel’. She writes what she been in love with her ever since, she is information’ she cannot immediately her m other’s house, and idiom, and it is calls ‘a Black Conciousness novel by a ‘inscrutable, a mystery heroine’. Jem transfer to her journal, and, realising white writer’: Annemarie is excluded wonders ‘What had moved her? What that there are events ‘not subject to the from the black world, but at the same had she loved?’ Much later, Ahmed control’ of her pen, she stops writing time it is her nascent political relation­ says that her charm ‘is in her cute, the journal. Screens Against the Sky ship with Simon which is her deepest irrelevant comments’ but that ‘behind Simon is connected to a world of Bloomsbury, London, secret, and the one more threatening that silence there’s an endurance and political resistance which is doubly 194pp„ £13.99, June 1990, than the secret that she has had sex strength and a lot of thinking going inaccessible to Annemarie not only with her cousin. One of the richest and on’, Yet Rosandra persists in being because she is white, but a woman. 074750674 4 lightest portrayals is Boehmer’s char­ blank, dead-pan, absent and ‘still’. When Annemarie takes Simon his acterisation of ‘African romance’. The Boehmer is interested in the way lunch, she also hands him coffee in a An Immaculate Figure day Annemarie learns of Biko’s death innocence can itself be guilty: the fron­ mug inscribed with the words ‘Our Bloomsbury, London, is the day, Boehmer writes, ‘her tispiece to the novel is a quote from Dad’. Simon, as a man, is the inheritor 231pp., £15.99, May 1993, African romance ended’. Graham Greene, ‘Even innocence ... not of her father’s politics, but of his 0 7475 1386 4 Just before this, Annemarie and her took on a dubious colour’. Rosandra access to politics. Politics, throughout mother go on holiday to a mountain has ‘no stain on her character’ and can­ the novel, is mediated by men. The resort, and Annemarie falls for the man not see ‘the taint’ in the world around ‘Our Dad’ lettering is also an incongru­ in the hut next door who smells of her, but Boehmer gives her heroine a ous label, suggesting that in the grass and sun and reads adventure sto­ flaw on her perfect white body: a big, apartheid context, people and situations ries. He invites her to go ‘reconnoitring black birthmark. At first it is ‘a huge carry false names (Simon wears a T- a return too to the mother in the sense along the boundary fence’ and freckle’, ‘a gravy stain’, a harmless shirt with the words, ‘Bay City that Annemarie never comes to maturi­ Annemarie, although she never goes, idiosyncrasy. Later it becomes a Rollers’), as well as the absurdity of ty and finds her own means of expres­ takes up the story, complete with ‘wound’, a ‘malignant’ growth, a ‘rot­ the mug as being the last relic of the sion. Her lack of growth repeats the macho hunters, in her journal. ting, sprouting polyp’ with tentacle father’s rule (the influence of the patri­ wider stuntedness of her society, and Boehmer hits off the careless fortissi­ edges, and the ‘outer stain of a hidden arch, despite his death, is pervasive the inability of certain forms of life to mo with which romances are written, infection’. Rosandra persists in seeing throughout the book). flourish. It is Annemarie’s confine­ the repetition of themes and the adoles­ nothing, and, seeing nothing, being After her father’s death, Annemarie ment, her partial vision, which is cent sexual desires that drive them: absolved, and this is tinged and tainted and her mother are thrown together in telling and which is the locus of the ‘The veld patroller and I kept watch at as she acquires a ‘hidden past’, if only their isolation. There is little of the ‘sis­ story. It is this lack which has to be border fences, living rough, outwitting a series of acquired images — a dead terly congeniality’ Annemarie has understood, Boehmer implies, before strong predators, sharing water mouth body here, an overheard conversation hoped for: instead, her mother goes on white South African women can escape to mouth, enduring. I wrote with my there. Her implication, growing and tranquillisers, stops playing the piano these limits. White South African fic­ left hand jammed firmly between my spreading, is her taint, potentially as and grows fearful. Boehmer shows up tion too, by drawing attention to the thighs. I forgot the time ...’. ugly, tentacled and alive as other harm­ the tensions and rivalries between retardedness of white vision, can open By mapping out these literary identi­ ful perpetrations.

SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS July/August 1993 Rosandra is ‘taken up’ by two men, learns that Michaelis, Thony’s black similar to the opening words of the as Boehmer explores the intricacies, as and she tells the story of her life with international art buyer, is an undercov­ book (‘It made a picture ... Beautiful far as it is possible, of superficial white them to Jem. Bass is an avuncular fig­ er agent for the black liberation strug­ entirely’). South Africans and their ultimately ure in her childhood (it is uncertain gle. She thus has information of ‘other Yet Boehmer, between the beginning cheap constellations. She embeds whether he is in fact her uncle) who is plots’, is party to knowledge, no longer and end of this story which is at once metaphors of sight, of the land, and based on the figure of Mike Hoare, the innocent of the facts. flat plane and enclosed circle, has perhaps the best and most striking of South African mercenary who attempt­ raised large questions: Is innocence her images, Rosandra’s birth-mark, ed a coup of the Seychelles in 1980. He simply a reprehensible lack of knowl­ deeply in her text, so that one is not left is ‘a man of Africa and prepared to edge, or is it a good thing which can be with a superficial or lightweight text. fight for it’ and he looks like a hero on implicated in guilt? (I think Boehmer Boehmer creates Rosandra as icon in a comic book cover. He tells Rosandra vacillates between the two). What kind part, giving her story the shades of stories of conquest in Africa, and when of distinction is to be drawn between parable. Thony refers to the African she is older takes her with him to make moral involvement, with the risk of icon he has bought from a European art her ‘queen’ of the African kingdom he doing something wrong and the poten­ exhibition and to Rosandra in the same is going to create, which really means In the final section of the novel, a tial to do better, and not being morally words: ‘you beautiful thing’. When ensconcing her in an hotel on ‘Eden limited awakening occurs. Rosandra involved at all, being detached? These Rosandra has what might be sex with island’ somewhere off the coast while finds herself across the border from are questions for any reader but for Thony, she remains innocent of what he plans a coup. Boehmer hints at liter­ South Africa in a house of anti­ South Africa too, where responsibility has happened to the degree that she ary mappings — Bass is the African apartheid activists (she sleeps with one and ‘seeing’ can have such powerful seems unfamiliar with ‘penis’, the adventurer/ the comic book hero, while of them whom she meets in a bar). implications^. word or thing. She is aware of surfaces later on Thony reminds Rosandra of Ahmed describes her birthmark to her touching, that the ‘covering’ is human ‘sagas and suspense’ — but these are as ‘a beautiful shape, the colour of oehmer has written a more ambi­ and feels her flesh open to ‘the force’. overlaid by other references, to con­ brinjals, your little hidden blackness’. tious book than her first novel, and Rosandra remains pure, virginal, temporary South African figures and There is the potential for her secret and Bit turns out to be richer, and less suc­throughout, and this is an ‘immaculate events. Rosandra lies on the beach and her shame to become something rich cessful in parts. Rosandra shares conception’, only there is no child: buys a pair of sunglasses which makes and positive, but Rosandra doesn’t Annemarie’s passivity, but she is not a Rosandra has a ‘phantom’ pregnancy. her vision ‘more fuzzy than it already respond; he gives her Siddhartha to literary figure: her ‘all surface’ quality Boehmer has written a feminist was’. Bass gives her a diamante’ neck­ read but she says she ‘doesn’t read is located in a wider world of men and book, but the heroine’s story is a story lace, a string of false diamonds which much, not politics or poetry’. She does travel and arms dealing. The risk of about not seeing, not acting, not being doesn’t last long: one of his drunk fel­ however drive Ahmed and Sipho on writing a novel that is not exciting implicated; about being acted upon, low coup-mates, supposed to be their ‘missions’ across the South enough is thus both greater and lesser: about living in a fantasy world, even Rosandra’s ‘date’, grabs it as he falls African border, and is pleased she has the heroine is if anything more of an about trying to retell men’s stories, or drunkenly off his chair one night. It is something that is not her figure or her empty vessel, but the potential for the stories about men. These are darker, one of many jewel images in the novel, face to exchange for her board. Sipho writing, panning a wider terrain, is deeper sides, perhaps, to (some) signalling empty allure, false promise, tells the story of his grandmother who greater. Boehmer signals the danger women’s stories, and more specifically glitter and cheap ornamentation. The in a Gandhi-like manner (she lives near when she has Rosandra say to Jem: too to white South African women’s image itself is a ‘false promise’, a where Gandhi set up a community cen­ stories. What are the stories that white demonstration of a tinny authenticity tre) assists the people around her to A story can feel wrong. There might be a South African women, encased, (‘there would only ever be this fight for their rights, and Rosandra sets bad teller. Or the person listening is in a ensconced, and often oblivious, are moment, this tinkling and falling’). off to try and visit her. She gets lost in bad mood. Maybe he expects too much likely to tell? Boehmer has presented Left alone after Bass has gone off to the township and cannot find her, how­ from the story. It’s not exciting enough. an extreme version, and she is one of a carry out his coup attempt which she ever. You don’t have to tell a story many times new generation of white South African only half registers, Rosandra is spotted After Sipho’s death — he is to have it go flat. Look at what I’ve just writers writing about white women’s by Thony, the owner of Star Palace and ambushed and killed by the South been telling you. We spent all these hours experience. Perhaps Rosandra’s out looking for ‘unspoilt beauties’, a African police — Rosandra feels guilt and I didn’t even manage to give you extremity is needed, her almost reference to both land and women. about the buried images she has Bass’ kind of story. Bass’ stories have obscene innocence, to press home the Thony is a thinly veiled Sol Kerzner, retained. She had been lucky, she real, first-hand excitement. You listen to extremity of her South African context the South African entrepreneur who realises, taking things as they came, but every word. You know who’s going to —- and besides, Boehmer is experi­ created Sun City in the homeland of ‘after a while her fortune developed a win, who the hero is. There’s a proper menting with images of pure fantasy, Bophutatswana. He has built ‘a palace kind of theme and the theme stuck. Her conflict, with real danger, explosions. I with the idea of an immaculate figure. of light, an empire’, and he wants to fortune was false appearances, men could listen to one of Bass’ stories today. Yet perhaps what might follow on are enthrone Rosandra ‘in the midst of all carrying and hiding arms. Sipho was more ambiguous white South African he possessed’. Thony creates aqua­ tied up in that fortune.’ She misses a But despite the risk of thinness, there ‘heroines’, less stark in their innocence parks out of drought lands, shaving and link she might have made, and the is great richness in this text: Boehmer and absence but woven with the same scraping the dry veld, and a man-made chance to use the information she has, weaves and weaves her images, mak­ kind of skill that Boehmer so frequent­ grotto plastered with jewels and pre­ and realises that she ‘should have ing them resurface and transform as the ly displays in this novel. ■ cious stones. Inside the ‘crystalline seen’. Jem is both disappointed and novel goes on. Jem (as in ‘gem’) is beauty’ of the grotto, Rosandra feels reassured to see that her guilt is made star-struck by Rosandra, who tells Sarah Nut tall is a PhD student in that the hair on her arms looks desper­ up, though, like the stories she invents episodes in a ‘beadlike’ row, and jewel South African Literature at Trinity ately untidy, and shaves it all off. (‘... an embroidery, a fantasy, like her images reverberate throughout the text, College, Oxford Thony collects beauty only to damage stories’): She was ‘offering a fantasy as it, Boehmer writes, and she weaves reparation when her feeling of respon­ SARoB Trial together effacement of the land and of sibility was enough’ and her guilt set women’s bodies. her creating ‘new plots, a different Subscription Offer In addition to the Ford Escort RX 3 past’. The late Rosandra has echoes of which Tony gives Rosandra (which she Annemarie in Screens Against the Sky for one year (6 issues) cannot drive), she gets a pair of glass­ as both ‘authors’, creators of narratives es. She finds she can see things more and spinners of fantasies: both white clearly — ‘the scratches and stains on heroines are ‘infected’ (Boehmer’s □ I would like to receive two free issues before deciding things, cracks where there had been word in Immaculate Figure) by stories. to subscribe. smooth, uninterrupted spaces’. The Rosandra sheds her guilt ‘like a delu­ world was ‘more exposed than it had sion, a bad dream, it was one of her □ I would like to subscribe. I enclose a cheque for R25,00 been, it was uglier, there was more inconsequentialities’. She touches and will receive two free issues and my annual sub­ detail in it, few plain surfaces’. When Jem ’s hand but it holds ‘no promise, no scription will begin thereafter. Jem is about to hear the story of Thony firmness’. We are back where we he thinks that Rosandra might after all began with Rosandra, or at least we N a m e ...... be ‘a consenting party, an active agent, have not come very far. She is in town A d d re s s ...... self-willed’. The reader too expects to do a modelling shoot, a cross-com­ that something will happen, something munal theme with African motifs in will be revealed, and Rosandra will which she is the white representative. Tick which option you prefer, fill in your name and address and return emerge from her chrysalis, her foetus Looking around her she says to Jem in the coupon with or without a cheque to: SARoB, PO Box 13094, Sir form, to see and act. All that really her vacuous way, ‘This is so African, Lowry Road 7900, Cape Town, South Africa happens though, is that Rosandra isn’t it? ...You can appreciate Africa for unwittingly becomes party to confiden­ what it is, big, hot and intense’. Jem For SA residents only. tial information, which deepens the sees that she makes ‘an unscathed pic­ Issu e 26 implications of her detachment. She ture, a perfect figure’. His words are

July/August 1993 SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS H ow do you survive as a writer comes from a literary base, from the Do you think other writers are Yes, well mine is. here in Zimbabwe? craft and the experience. doing this. I’m trying to establish It is? Well so you are read. You have to have 3 or 4 lives, and The end of Harvest Of Thorns whether you see yourself as working [laughs] I am, I am beginning to be being a writer is only one of them, you leaves a lot of unfinished business, entirely on your own or whether read, but this is only the first year I have to be a writer, but you have to be unanswered questions. I get the there is a common agenda for writ­ have been on the syllabus the person you are as well, you have to impression that that is one of the dif­ ers. How would you like things to be, be the person at home, the person you ficult areas to write about. Do you I don’t know, but I would like to what is you ideal publishing situa­ are in Zimbabwe, a third thing which find you want to write about that, think that some of my contemporaries tion? adds the political, social, economic you are restrained from writing are as uneasy with these things as I am, Well, it’s easy to criticise, but in fact cultural dimension. The writing pro­ about that? I think they are. Chenjerai [Hove] or we’ve had a lot of good publishers in fession is different here, is diffused OK, that’s a good question, there are Stanley Nyamfukudza, I think they are. the last ten years, Baobab and Mambo into all these other things, I don’t think things that are too recent, too close to Aftermaths is a beautiful collection, but as well as Longmans and Heinemann. a person can just declare themselves to you. You don’t want people to think we don’t want to stampeded into these Irene told me that here in be a writer, and just exist as a writer. that you have to do a colonial book, a sorts of movement, and I think we Zimbabwe the print run for a first We’ve had one interesting person who post colonial book, a neo-colonial would like to write well, we’d like to novel is between eight and twelve tried it, Dambuzo Marachera, he’s the book. I suppose people are saying reflect on things. I hope we are going hundred, and they sell them! only claim to be writer. ‘where is the post independence novel, to show the complexity of our experi­ It is a better situation than most So when you think of yourself as where is the ... ‘ ence, that we are not just ‘victims of African countries, but now we have ‘I’, are there several yous, are you It’s a difficult question, isn’t it, colonisation’, but more what it means had a big recession, a serious recession, primarily a writer? especially if you haven't written a to be African, especially today, suffer­ and where people were saying let’s do Well I take my writing very serious­ novel for seven years. ing from drought, and coups d ’etat and six creative writing projects a year, ly, but I don’t want to walk around Yes, where is the corruption, where wars and AIDS and all that. We’re try­ now it is perhaps just one. with a label on my forehead saying is the neo-colonialism? ...and one ing to say, look there’s so much more Who is going to suffer most from ‘I’m a writer’, I like it to blend into doesn’t want to fall into that. I’d like to to us that you think. this? my other lives, its a kind of protection write about things that move me, about Who is your audience? Who do Everyone, but new writers especially, for me. neo-colonialism and corruption yes, you want them to be? because if I take a book to Irene, she’ll Do you find being a Zimbabwean but not in that prescribed way. OK, I This may sound reactionary, I know probably want to look at it, whereas influences you as a responsibility or a think it is to do with our history, I mean communist writers who say ‘you are with a new writer ... But I think there is restraint? we are a very young nation. Yes, we writing for so and so’, but in the something to be said also about our It’s a limitation in that I can’t devote reading, and our people have betrayed all my time to writing and live on it, I us. Because we did British writers at have to create blocks of time. Harvest Writers at Work school people think they are better. Our o f Thorns I wrote in Iowa, I had a writ­ teachers are still convinced of that, ing scholarship for one and a half whereas this book by Shimmer years, I was doing an MA. Then again, Chinodya or Chenjerai, well [laughs] just last week I came back from this we know him, Huh! Zimbabwe! He writing fellowship — after seven years, Shim m er can’t be that good ... We are only I hadn’t done a big book at all; because twelve years old in terms of indepen­ I have to work, I have to go to my rela­ dence. People are still learning to tives, I have to be me, I have to be respect themselves. these other people. So the trick is to But if you are on the syllabuses, find blocks of time, at least to start Chinodya that’s something, because that’s something, and then I can come back to always the formation of a canon, Z&-J ii* -»>is. it. Isn’t It? So you see your life as that, rather Yes, then people will talk, and they than several things at once. You can­ will refer to those books, it’s coming not write and work? slowly. Our own critics, I have had my I can, this collection of stories I are an old old culture, but expressing process of writing, in the process of big quarrels with our critics, I think for worked on for four to five weeks, I did ourselves in literature, socially, cultur­ creating, my loyalties are to my too long they were as hypocritical as enough to get me the momentum, I ally, we are very young, and I think our sources and to my raw material. For our politicians. There is this belated dug the foundations, and then I can go literature will reflect that, we have a instance writing Harvest O f Thorns, am realisation that we should have opened on and add to it over the next year or certain energy ... I doing it right, am I showing how up from day one, both academics and so. The unfinished business may be things would happen, am I being ourselves. Too long the critics were Do you see yourself as part of a something where colonialism was authentic and as close to his experi­ caught up in ideology, they were ask­ movement, are there traditionalists important, yes, but it wasn’t the only ences as possible? And that obsesses ing for praise books, they were asking and radicals, where do you see your­ thing. me, getting things right and getting for books that were ideologically cor­ self? No, it wasn’t. Colonialism can be so things interesting and exciting; I’m just rect, and that was nonsense. I think I think as a serious writer, well (self boring. We are products of colonialism, so consumed with that obsession. I they probably did as much harm as deprecating laugh) ... To me every but we are also products of our own only get out of the book when it is anybody else. book is different, and for me to be say­ culture, ethics values and so on. done, and then we can start looking for But Zimbabwe strikes me as being ing I belong to a particular movement, Colonialism is just a passing phase. I buyers and start looking for an audi­ a very free country. I think it’s limiting, the only way to would like to write a book that could ence. I would like all Zimbabweans to OK, that’s good to hear from a visi­ judge a person is up to their death move back and fourth in time, that read it. At this moment, there are a lot tor. Yes, they allow us to let things out [inaudible laugh] could move back a hundred years, for­ of Americans, they’ll read it and they’ll here and there, relief valves. I think But no writer starts in a void, you ward twenty years. think, whoa, this is how Africans think; with the war some of our writers got have antecedents. Are there people but in an ethnic sense, in a nationalist into trouble doing certain books. It’s up you see yourself, as a writer — in sense, I think the book is doing some­ to us to be subtle, I- hate writers who opposition to? thing for Zimbabweans, something for throw themselves at politicians. Why OK. I started writing thirty years Africans. should I be so dumb that I throw ago, when I was eight or ten, so you And do you think Zimbabweans myself at whatever? We ought to be so can become a writer, you can start with are reading it? clever that people don’t realise what a love for words, a love for reading and I want them to read it, they are not we are doing, how we are criticising. books. And then you wean yourself off reading it as much as they should. What would the sanction be, would this infatuation with words, you begin Would that be dangerous? I asked Irene [Staunton, Manager it be censorship? to approach serious things, you stop I think that is the only way to solve of the Baobab Press] who in broad Yes, but we’ve also censored our­ writing romantic stuff and you begin to the recent variety of the African experi­ terms bought books, and she said it selves a lot. Conditions in Rhodesia approach serious political issues, poli­ ence. Because half the African writers was hard to know. were so bad, but somehow we’ve been tics, probably politics, I think politics are doing the colonial experience, this I Even my friends will say to me ‘Oh so conditioned that we haven’t is the next thing. That’s what happened think is very reductive, the African there’s a good book you did,’ but I explored all there is to explore. I hope to me. My first novel is very cultural, psyche has been belittled so much, it know only twenty or thirty per cent of Zimbabwean society is mature enough very literary. has been reduced too much, there are them will have bothered to read it, so that nobody can tell us what to write But the other way of getting into so many layers to your experience, and the reading culture ... unless a book and what not to write. And I hope that writing is — you can get traumatised we have to smash down these areas gets onto O level ... writers have realised that. ■ people, becoming writers, say, because which have been imposed on us by out­ Are there any contemporary they were in the war of liberation a few siders, to show these layers, to show Zimbabwean writers who have their James Waddington spoke to Shimmer years ago. But I think the best writing how complex [things are]. books on the .. Chinodya in Harare, 29 March 1993

SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS July/August 1993 errible things have happened Fiction — and are still happening — in T Angola. Yet they have never really attracted the concentrated inter­ est of the outside world: among other African countries Mozambique, Somalia and the Sudan have been Patriots much more copiously reported and vividly described. In large part this cur­ tain of obscurity has been a deliberate creation of the two opposing faction, MPLA and Unita, both of which have ROBIN HALLETT writes about Sousa Jamba, an Angolan proved adept at deterring prying eyes. For many years the Unita leader, Jonas journalist who has the potential to become a great novelist Savimbi, has conducted a sophisticated publicity operation which allowed his gullible hosts in Washington and else­ where to overlook the fact that he is graphical note written by Sousa Jamba than any account by an outside observer great man but learns to keep his ideas to probably the most ruthlessly totalitari­ and made available by the publisher of it conveys the individual human cost to himself — but the seeds of later dissi- an leader that contemporary Africa has his second novel: a society being tom apart by civil war. dence have clearly been sown. Towards ever produced. As for the MPLA the the end of the book when after a con­ party’s more collective style of leader­ I was bom in 1966 in central Angola, the fusing skirmish Hosi finds himself the ship has served effectively enough to tenth in a family of eleven. My father ... prisoner of four MPLA soldiers, he prevent the free, analytical reporting of was a schoolteacher ... who owned his starts regretting that he had been bom a kind that has long been possible in own school. An affair with one of his stu­ an Angolan and an African rather than Mozambique. dents led to my father’s excommunica­ in Europe or America where he ‘could There have of course been other fac­ tion from the church and the collapse of have spent his whole life concerned tors to account for the varying forms of the school. In 1972 my parents moved to with motor-bikes and things that were censorship to which news from Angola Huambo. My father eventually moved in Sousa Jamba clearly possesses one of good ... Angola to him made no sense. has been subjected: in Cold War days with a former pupil and that was the end the sovereign qualities of the good nov­ He did not feel a patriot in any sense’. the commitment of the United States of my parents’ marriage. elist — a relish in the experiences of However the books closing words, after and the old Soviet Union to one side or In 1976 I fled with my sister to Zambia other people. During his military ser­ an unexpected encounter with a brother the other, the sneaky nature of South ... where I lived until 1985 when I went to vice Hosi, we are told, ‘made a lot of who had been fighting on the MPLA African involvement, the lack of a seri­ join the Unita guerrillas. I then worked as friends. He liked listening to the stories side , contradict Hosi’s mood of disillu­ ous stake in the country of all Western a reporter-cum-translator with the Unita of the other soldiers.’ Right at the start sion: ‘although they disagreed on many European nations except Portugal. And News Agency. In 1986 I came to Britain of the book are given an insight into things, there was one point they agreed so in the years since independence — on a scholarship to study journalism. the conversation and aspirations of a on — they loved Angola. Yes, they and indeed also in the colonial era ---- group of young Angolan refugees in were all patriots’. there have been remarkably few reports Before long he had broken with Zambia, all hoping to obtain a UN There is a refreshing honesty about about Angola of a kind easily available Unita and set about earning his living scholarship: such ambiguities. As the other passages in the West that carry the stamp and as a freelance writer. Hosi Mbueti, the quoted — and their number could have detail of authenticity. Worst of all, we main character of Patriots follows the Pinto wanted to go to America and study been much extended — should have have been given precious little chance main outline of his creator’s career: he engineering. Lindo dreamed of Lisbon served to show, this is a book rich in to hear the voices of Angolans them­ too grows up in central Angola, flees to where he hoped to train as a solicitor. Ze humane insights — a very considerable selves. ~ m m m m tm Zambia at the start of the civil war, was crazy about Australia. They would achievement for so young a writer. These circumstances make the receives an education in English in his talk for hours about the merits of this or appearance of two works of fiction country of refuge and eventually that country. Hosi wanted to go to ousa Jamba’s second novel, A written in English by a young Angolan returns to join the Unita guerrillas, the England ... he believed that the English Lonely Devil, published three years writer, Sousa Jamba, particularly wel­ novel ends with his first confusing were the most civilised people on earth, Slater but with its author still in his mid­ come. Works of fiction are also histori­ experience of military action, tempo- drinking tea in the afternoon and spend­ twenties, represents a very substantial cal documents — more accessible and ing the evening reading Shakespeare. literary advance. It is shorter, simpler, pleasantly readable than most of the more tightly structured and so more material that comes a historian’s way. A little later Hosi takes older compellingly readable. The setting is Any work of fiction, even pulp novels, Patriots Angolans to task for regarding Henrique, a small island near Sao has of its very nature a multi-faceted by Sousa Jamba Portuguese civilisation as being superi­ Tome, a credible imaginary location — character. Obviously it may have noth­ Viking, 1990, 292pp, or to that of the British. ‘The Port­ hence perhaps the occasional refer­ ing to contribute to a detailed knowl­ £13.99 uguese never produced Shakespeare — ences to N ostrom o — a Portuguese edge of those events a historian may that is the truth.’ This statement draws plantation colony which gained inde­ deem important. But history is or ought a rebuke from an older man who asks pendence in 1975 and was then taken to be concerned also with the social A Lonely Devil him if he has not heard of Luis de over by the island’s dominant group, attitudes and aspirations of individuals by Sousa Jamba Camoes. ‘The Portuguese’, he declares, the Monangola clan, whose members in different groups or communities Fourth Estate, 1993, ‘discovered the world.’ Patriots is full did clerical jobs in colonial times and viewed thus novels can provide hugely 154pp, £12.99 of similarly revealing conversations, a thought of themselves as only a little important source material. Most seri­ little stilted perhaps but vividly illus­ lower in the social hierarchy than the ous novel-readers are, of course, not trating the mix of world-views and plantation owners. ‘When they talked moved by such serious professional aspirations which are to be found in of democracy, they meant that their concern: they read to be entertained, to rary capture by the MPLA and return any society but which come out more vote should be heard ... not those be taken out of themselves and given to Unita lines. The narrative which explicitly into the open in a country whose forbears had worked on the the opportunity of making the acquain­ covers a relatively brief span of time subjected to such cruel strains as con­ plantations.’ From this group comes tance of people and places often very from Hosi’s decision to return to temporary Angola. Here is another the island’s single party which estab­ different from those with which they Angola to his spell of training in example of the sort of vignette with lishes an authoritarian regime based on are familiar in every day life. Novels Jamba, the Unita headquarters, is inter­ which the book is full. As rumours of Marxism-Leninism. can be read in many different ways. spersed with flash-backs to his early the impending war reach a small town Fernando Luis, the ‘lonely devil’ of My own reason for picking out Sousa life and with interludes which serve to in central Angola, ‘children who until the title, tells his own story. An Jamba’s books was that I have long follow the experiences of other charac­ recently were playing mothers and unwanted child, born of a casual liai­ been concerned — not just as a histori­ ters. Such a structure makes for a ram­ fathers were now playing soldiers. son, he is brought up in an orphanage an but also for ordinary human reasons bling presentation. The multitude of They divided themselves into three and so never possesses those family — with developments in Angola in the Hosi’s friends, acquaintances and rela­ movements — Unita, the MPLA and associations — especially if one is a painful years since independence in tions becomes confusing — many of the FNLA and then threw stones at Monangola —- which are so vital to 1975. Such an approach need not them are not sharply enough drawn to each other’. social acceptance and-advancement. exclude a more conventional literary lodge in the memory nor does the As for the book’s title, Patriots, there ‘My story’, he says in the preface to his interest. writer, as he later succeeds in doing in is certainly a hint of irony about it. autobiography, ‘is the-story of a man Like many first novels, Sousa his second novel, provide his reader Jonas Savimbi never appears in person who set out on a quest for love and Jam ba’s Patriots obviously contains a with a tangible sense of place. In spite but is referred to as the Elder: coming innocence. I have always wanted to be large element of autobiography. So it is of these weaknesses Patriots remains a from Zambia, Hosi is a little put out by loved by everyone.’ Yet sadly at the worth quoting from the brief autobio­ novel full of interest. More effectively the excessive reverence shown to the end of his short life he realises that no-

July/August 1993 SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS one has ever really loved him; even of woman with a mind of her own. Tete intense pleasure that went with slitting people I am the least happy because I the women with whom he has had inti­ introduces Fermando to the island’s open a man’s throat’. Yet there is a long for purity. I long for love. As I mate relationships he can say that they intelligentsia, but in never hesitating to price to be paid: ‘anyone who has will never find it, the best course for ‘never felt that if I ceased to exist it express her own ideas she is literally killed knows that inflicting death is like me to make a final exit’. would make the slightest difference to digging her own grave. After an unsuc­ virginity: you only lose it once’. He This is a moving, credible, powerful­ them .’ cessful coup she is one of the first to be begins to feel the need to go some­ ly imagined work of fiction. Because it Even as a boy, Fernando felt lonely, arrested never to be seen again. To save where ‘to regain my innocence’. is cast in an autobiographical form, we though at an early age, contributing to his own skin Fernando goes to the An opportunity for a ‘flight into never have the chance of seeing a school newspaper, he grasped the police and confesses that though he has innocence comes when he is offered a Fernando from the outside: would the power of journalism: ‘through writing I made love to Tete, he knows that she trip to Brazil to report on Henriquan honest autobiography of a real-life con­ could reach people’. But he also learnt was really a ‘reactionary’. Now he can dissidents and write unflattering arti­ centration camp torturer ever reveal that ‘I carried evil within me ... and guarantee his own safety only by co­ cles about that dangerously seductive such a ‘longing for purity’? But then could never love people as much as I operating wholeheartedly with the country. But Fernando soon succumbs we are all unique cases. In Fernando could have wanted.’ And so he is led to regime. to and engagingly describes the cheer­ Luis Sousa Jamba has created a memo­ a number of mean and cruel actions Fernando proves himself an adroit ful, relaxed tone of Brazilian life, he rable character, at once pathetic and designed to wound those more popular collaborator. While still working as a moves in with a Brazilian girlfriend, a engaging and in his frankness or fortunate than himself. On leaving journalist, he accepts a part-time black painter who takes her name admirable, a victim not only of his own school, soon after Henrique becomes appointment working for the secret Sayonara from a Japanese film, and failings, but of the tensions of the soci­ independent, he lands a job on the police as an interrogator at the island’s ends up as a political refugee. But the ety into which he was born. Taken island’s only newspaper. But he is soon notorious detention cenrre. Camp more he thinks about his life, the more together with Patriots, A Lonely Devil forced to realise that as a ‘rootless per­ Alpha Zulu. Revelling in this sudden convinced he becomes that he has been shows Sousa Jamba to have the capaci­ son’, lacking the proper social creden­ access to power, he becomes both a born with the devil’: ‘I could never ty to become one of the most notable tials, his chances of advancement are torturer and a murderer — an experi­ love and ... also felt unlovable’. In the African writers of our time. ■ fatally blocked. However he is lucky ence which he describes in honest, if end nothing can save him. ‘A life void enough to establish an intimate rela­ repellent detail: T felt fulfilled ... only of love’, he decides, ‘is not worth liv­ Robin Hallett is a historian, recently tionship with a ‘real Monangola girl’, those of us who had had the privilege ing.’ ‘Sometimes’, he writes on the awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Teresa Sampaio or Tete, a lively young of taking other people’s lives knew the book’s last page, ‘I feel that of all evil the University of Cape Town.

ome years back when writers attended by cadres of the Movement like Ngugi (Decolonizing the from different countries, various S Mind) and Soyinka started argu­ departments and structures. There was ing about the necessity of African writ­ Language, also a contingent from inside the coun­ ers writing in African languages, I was try — COSATU, COSAW, a few ‘edu­ one of those who did not consider the cationists’ and so on. And because issue serious enough to even be inter­ Gorbachev had not yet, in his insane ested in participating in the debate as a pursuit of capitalist ‘solutions’ for practising writer. I even believed that Culture socialist problems, driven his final the question was of no relevance to the screw into the Soviet Union coffin, South African writer. My argument there was an observer from the Soviet went further: most African literatures Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee. A in South Africa were in African lan­ few of us argued that in a post- guages anyway. Those of us who wrote and Visas apartheid South Africa — strange as it in English were an insignificant, per­ might sound there was already a com­ haps finally an irrelevant, minority. So, mittee or some kind of structure by that according to my thinking then, the name, Post-Apartheid South Africa major task, the mission, of the writer to the 21st (PASA), which did not have a corre­ was to write, always aiming to achieve sponding material reality — every at least a modicum of artistic excel­ South African child should grow up lence and to remain, at all times, speaking at least one indigenous lan­ socially relevant. What language we guage fluently. Therefore the indige­ wrote in was not as important as our Century nous languages should be made an being productive as literary artists, the integral part of the curriculum from the good and the beautiful always insepa­ first year of school. This should be rable. made compulsory though the choice of In the ANC community in exile, the language itself should be left to the except for Mazizi Kunene and the late KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE pupil or student. Joe Bulane, we mainly used English to Perhaps not so strangely the communicate and to create our litera­ strongest and most vociferous opposi­ ture. Perhaps if I point out that at our tion to this recommendation came from historic Culture and Resistance that in Botswana all the nationals speak expense of my own language! So, our ‘educationist’ compatriots. They Symposium/Festival in Botswana in Setswana except the paper ones, as the M ayihlom e\ To arms! Unfortunately did not think it an insult to refer to our 1982, the language question was not naturalised ones are contemptuously right after I had made an intervention languages as vernaculars either. Those even part of our agenda, you will referred to if they are seen to behave as our young worthy of English letters left at the forefront of this opposition were realise how far it was from our every­ though they thought themselves to be the conference, without a single word non-African. You see, there is this day national concerns and preoccupa­ more-Tswana-than-thou. Also here oral in response, in English or any other stubborn little paradox: there are South tions. literature is as alive as the blues in language spoken in the region, and was Africans who would feel very insulted However, I take the defence and pro­ Chicago in this latter part of the twenti­ never to be seen again for the rest of or scandalised if they were thought to motion of English, or any other lan­ eth century, no matter what any lying the conference. As the schoolteacher in be, or referred to as, Africans. Of guage, at the expense of my language, tourist guide or guidebook or expert N gem a’s Sarafina says: ‘It’s a pity!’ course they were joined by some or any other language, as an act of expatriate might want the unsuspecting Africans who must harbour a very low aggression, a declaration of war. In visitor to believe. opinion of their languages (or should I 1984, at the University of Botswana, a As a Motswana (we did not create say vernaculars?) and, consequently, of young Motswana author, Andrew the colonial fence that separates us) their cultures and, it follows even with­ Sesenyi, who had published one not- and a practising writer, I felt strongly out saying it seems, themselves. so-impressive novel in English, took that Sesenyi’s argument was preposter­ advantage of the platform of a mini­ ous. My sense of duty and responsibili­ hat was years ago. And I was in writers’ conference to advise the aspi­ ty, artistically, socially and intellectual­ exile. In 1990, after almost thirty rant writers among the university stu­ ly, would not allow me to let this kind In 1988 — it might have been ‘89 Tyears, I returned home. The internal dents to forget about writing in of obscurantism, whether done with things have been happening so fast debate on the language question was a Setswana. They should produce their calculated intent or unwittingly, go on these past few years — the ANC few years old and gaining momentum. national literature in English. If they unchallenged. Mind you I am not, and I Department of Education held a lan­ For some of us the centrality of lan­ wrote in Etrglish, he argued, they have never been really, opposed to the guage seminar in Harare. It was the guage to culture has become a burning would have a much larger audience development and promotion of any lan­ first of its kind to be held by the ANC issue. How did this come about? I than if they wrote in Setswana. Note guage, English included. But at the community outside the country. It was think if I retrace the path to where I

SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS July/August 1993 stand now, I might make a little contri­ a formal organised manner — the arguing that this demand by the centrality of language to the process of bution to this debate. responsibility being that of the institu­ Japanese authorities was an act of. decolonising the mind for years on I grew up in a home in which tions and not the burden of the despair­ aggression, an act of cultural imperial­ innumerable platforms internationally English was a tacit taboo. One of the ing individual teacher with a sense of ism. And right there and then, I under­ and in his writing. His response was in most painfully rending criticisms, no, accountability, a sense of mission — stood why at times in my young years Kikuyu. Said Khamis also responded condemnations, rendered with a brutal then seriously speaking, there are no I would hate my fluency in English to Brutus’s advice, perhaps more heat­ calmness by my maternal grandmother schools in the townships, and in the without even thought to it; why I edly than I did, in KiswahilL The whenever I blundered limp-mindedly rural communities as well; thanks to would argue with my friends at times Japanese expressed their solidarity with into a violation of that taboo, without Verwoed, the perverse architect of this that I spoke this damned language the Korean writers’ resistance against intent to be defiant in any of my lip hideous nightmare, and all his descen­ much too well for my own good. I Japanese cultural imperialism. marathons, mind you, was a simple: dants, including the junior, semi-slick, understood clearly why I stubbornly It also seemed ironic, or like some ‘Hnh, okare re setse re na le mak- neo-apartheid wonderboy De Klerk. refused to speak English with my chil­ neurosis of history, that the only people goanyana mono ’ (it seems like we And the schools in ‘white South dren until they were fluent in one or who participated in English were already have some junior Europeans Africa', where now supposedly all of two African languages first; it didn’t Dennis Brutus, Gcina Mhlope and I, here). I grew up on Setswana litera­ our children can go and learn and be matter which African language since, the South Africans. One of the ques­ ture; 1 carried my classics with me educated, remain stubbornly though they were bom and brought up tions that set my mind on fire and kept everywhere I went, as I still do, to Eurocentric. Add to that the institu­ in different parts of the world, the fanning the flames, forcing me to write keep up with my contemporaries who tions of higher learning and research stubborn little arguable fact is that this article, was: Does Dennis Brutus wrote in my language. In spite of all and the native-servicing Vista so-called they are African. realise that his argument is in support the English I spoke and read everyday universities. of English cultural imperialism? and wrote in five days a week, I Of course 1 know that Brutus does always dreamt in Setswana and usual­ y youngest son Neo goes to not, would not, intend to support, pro­ ly the first thing I would say in the Sacred Heart in Yeoville. Sarred mote or defend imperialism, cultural or morning, if I said anything before I MHeart is expensive — remember it was any other kind, at any level. But I think was fully awake, would be in not built with the Freedom Charter what he overlooks is the fact that every Setswana. As part of my political Education and Culture Clause in mind; language embodies and projects, prop­ development, I tried to study the it is supposedly a good school and also agates, the cultural values of its users; national question: Stalin, Lenin, Ho supposedly, relatively progressive, that that the ‘distribution’ and uses of Chi Minh, and so on. Neruda wrote is, in the context of the real, everyday, English are dialectically related to the about being frustrated by being exiled bucket-of-black-blood South Africa. uses and abuses of power, economic, from his language as a diplomat in One evening a few months after he military, political. I concede that we Asia; I understood that clearly, I started going to Sacred Heart, Neo could speak of a South African English thought. But it remained cerebral, asked me why they (the pupils) were in the same way that we could speak of intellectual; it lacked the immediacy not allowed to speak their languages at an Australian English or a wherever of emotional and psychological identi­ school. Nothing new in that, we all English wherever they have plundered, fication. It did not hit me and apply to suffered that violence and cultural butchered, and conquered in pursuit of me there-and-then, at-the-moment-of, humiliation. No Boer regime lied to us their ruthless ‘civilising mission’. But in the gut. Until my first daughter was about ‘human rights’, ‘non-racialism’, then again even if we spoke of a South born in exile — Ipeleng was born in concern about ‘all our people’, inten­ African English, how many users new York in 1969 — the language tion to ‘redress imbalances’, as would we be speaking of? For instance question had never disturbed my mind Njabulo Ndebele has already clearly in any township or rural area? How enough, with an uncompromising pointed out. Kaffir was kaffir, and Keorapetse Kgositsile would it sound if a Vietnamese or demand to be confronted. white was arrogantly, unapologetical- Korean, German, Libyan, Greek or Since mid-December 1990 I frave ty,-militanfly white, andwhite was feU—In his. contribution Dennis Brutus whatever writer advised other writers been in and out of South Africa in an right and might, and white was de law. argued, essentially, that we were about on any platform anywhere to abandon unsettled, or even somewhat unset­ A few more months later the puzzled to enter the twenty-first century; that writing in their languages because we tling, mission-accomplished-back-to- child asked me: ‘Papa, why do we English would be the language of the are on the threshold of the twenty-first rear-base, sort of way. In travelling speak so much English here at home twenty-first century and that, there­ century and we must enter it through around the country meeting and work­ (meaning in South Africa)?’ But now fore, we should be well-advised to English? ing with predominantly younger writ­ when I speak to him in Setswana, or accept that and be ready to enter the We are now talking about a new ers in COSAW Creative Writing work­ Zulu, more often than not he responds twenty-first century through the South Africa, hopefully post- not neo­ shops I often encounter disturbing in English. English language. apartheid; about free elections, one per­ problems in connection with language I could go on and on with examples son one vote; about a non-racial, non­ and the production of literature. There of what I think clearly indicates the sexist, democratic South Africa. are many younger would-be poets, for existence of a serious national problem Cutting through all that excess ver­ instance, who cannot really handle demanding us to confront it. biage, we are finally, rationally talking English competently enough to write Remember the National Question in about majority rule. And FACT: The poetry in it. Now these younger writ­ South Africa has not been resolved yet. majority of South Africans do not ers are usually well-grounded in one As the song says about other sites of speak English. Are they doomed to or several of our indigenous lan­ our struggle for national liberation: remain this side of the twenty-first cen­ guages. But they insist on writing in ‘Unzima lomtwalo’ (It is heavy this This advice made me wild. My arm tury? English because they have been duped load)! shot up in readiness for an intervention Ngugi and I pursued this discussion into believing that to be a serious Recently (October 1992) there was a even before he was through with his for a while as he was getting ready to writer is synonymous with writing in conference of African and Asian writ­ promotion of English. I could vividly leave Japan the day after the language English. They don’t always trust my ers in Japan. Gcina Mhlope, Ngugi wa remember the crack of a ruler on the panel. He maintained that no matter advising them to abandon English and Thiong’o, Said M. Khamis, Dennis knuckles of some African school child how much I could ‘tame English into to write in the indigenous language Brutus and I were among the few who, because s/he could not cope with my language’, as I used to argue I they are most competent and comfort­ African writers invited who managed the drills in the Student’s Companion, would, I would finally be enriching able in, like Mangoaela, for instance, a to attend. There was a contingent of was betraying her or his duty as a citi­ English and not Setswana. How could I Mosotho, who makes his poetry in Korean writers and, of course our zen (of the British Empire): ‘loyalty to possibly argue against that level of Xhosa and is out there with the best of hosts, the Japanese. the queen’. Remembered The Royal clarity? As the blues singer says: ‘Hit the practitioners in that language. On the language panel we learned Reader. I pointed out that the majority me in the eye! Maybe then, maybe then Even when in despair I try to point out from the Korean writers how they of the people on this planet did not I ’ll see better’. correctly that our languages are much were engaged in a serious struggle of speak English out of choice; that we Yevtushenko used to ask me with older, much more expressive, poetical­ resistance against the Japanese author­ were victims and casualties of English intense concern, almost childlike, how ly much richer than English, which is ities. The Japanese authorities demand cultural imperialism; that at no point I could settle for writing in a backward an admirably advanced fa n a g a lo in that Korean literature written and pub­ should we be advised to allow our lan­ language like English when I had a rich spite of its imperialist, sexist, racist lished in Japan must be in Japanese. guages to suffers the aggression of the poetic language. I now find the ready and class biases, my advice tends to There is a sizeable exiled Korean ‘civilising mission’ of English cultural answers 1 used to have embarrassingly remain suspect because: ‘But, don’t I community resident in Japan. Their imperialism with resignation; that some arrogant and ignorant. ■ say, Bra Willie writes in English him­ residence in Japan does not make of us were hostile to the notion of self mos, so how come then?’ them Japanese. Abandoning their lan­ being advised to obtain English lan­ Keoraptse Kgositsile teaches at Another disturbing thing is what guage in the production of their litera­ guage visas to enter the twenty-first Wayne State University, Detroit, goes on in the schools. If schools are ture, they argued, would be tanta­ century. Michigan US. His most recent poetry the institutions where learning and mount to abandoning their culture. Ngugi also responded, more calmly c o lle c tio n When the Clouds Clear education are supposed to take place in And I understood them to be clearly than I did; remember he has argued the was published by COSAW in 1991.

July/August 1993 SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS

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

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