Born in Africa But..: Women's Poetry of Post-Apartheid South Africa in English
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“Born in Africa but...” – Women’s poetry of post-Apartheid South Africa in English Inaugural-Dissertation vorgelegt von zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie Isabelle Vogt an der aus Rottenburg am Neckar Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München am 14. Oktober 2008 Namen der Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Helge Nowak Prof. Dr. Horst Zander Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 09. 02. 2009 Dedication For my Family and Friends I want to thank my supervisor Professor Helge Nowak from the Ludwig- Maximilians-University in Munich for his thorough and patient assistance and guidance. Additional thanks also go to Professor Horst Zander, my initial supervisor, for starting the project with me, Professors Michael Chapman and Sally-Ann Murray of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban and Professor Geoffrey Haresnape of the University of Cape Town for their advice whenever it was needed. I further owe deep gratitude to Thomas Brewster for proof-reading all my chapters over and over again and for his never ending motivation and belief in me and this study. Furthermore, I want to thank all the other people who supported my work with whatever means as well as the wonderful poets whom I met during the past few years and who allowed me to use their work and photos.1 Last but not least, I want to thank my South African friends, through whom I was granted insight into the true contemporary South Africa, and my family, who allowed and encouraged me to spend so much time abroad. For the opportunity of exchange with other doctoral candidates I want to thank the Munich “KHG Think Tank” and the “LMU excellence” Mentoring Programme which accepted me as a member in September 2007 and with which I could travel to a conference at the Venice International University in December 2007. The exchange with others always proved most enriching. Last but not least, for their financial support and their faith in me and my thesis I am deeply grateful to the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation. On top of the interesting (international) seminars I participated in during the time I received their scholarship from April 2006 till March 2008, they made it possible for me to travel twice to South Africa to pursue my research and to attend various poetry festivals around the country, indispensable for the progress of this dissertation. 1 Every attempt has been made to locate copyright holders for inclusion of all material not in the public domain. If in certain cases I was unable to trace the copyright holder, I would be grateful for any information that would enable me to do so. Questions about copyright may be directed to [email protected]. Introduction TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 I. A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO SOUTH AFRICA 12 I.1 SOUTH AFRICA’S HISTORY 14 I.2 APARTHEID 16 I.3 THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY 28 II. IDENTITY-FORMATION IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA 34 II.1 POSTCOLONIAL THEORIES AND THE POST-APARTHEID SEARCH FOR IDENTITY 35 II.2 ASPECTS OF IDENTITY IN SOUTH AFRICA 41 II.3 THE ‘COLOURED’ CASE 47 II.4 A COLOURED PLACE 53 III. POETRY IN SOUTH AFRICA 57 III.1 ‘INSTITUTIONS’ 61 III.1.1 Poetry journals 61 III.1.2 Contemporary women poets and publishers 63 III.1.3 Poetry awards and their recipients 65 III.1.4 Poetry festivals around South Africa 68 III.2 PERFORMANCE POETRY IN SOUTH AFRICA 72 III.3 THE POETS’ STYLE 79 III.4 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE CREATION OF AN IDENTITY 85 IV. SOUTH AFRICAN POETS 93 IV.1 MALE POETS IN SOUTH AFRICA: SETTING THE SCENE 93 IV.2 WOMEN POETS IN SOUTH AFRICA BEFORE 1994 107 IV.3 A PERSONAL VIEW ON AFRICA, PAST AND PRESENT: MALIKA NDLOVU 112 IV.3.1 Biographical context 112 IV.3.2 ‘Healing through creativity’ 121 V. MEMORIES OF APARTHEID IN WOMEN’S POETRY 123 -1- Introduction THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN POST-APARTHEID POETRY 139 VI. SKIN-COLOUR AND BELONGING 140 VI.1 BEING BLACK AND A NEW VOICE 142 VI.2 BEING A WHITE WOMAN IN SOUTH AFRICA, YESTERDAY AND TODAY 179 VII. WOMANISM 189 VII.1 BEING A WOMAN IN SOUTH AFRICAN POETRY 191 VII.2 A PLACE CALLED ‘HOME’ 218 VIII. BEING AN ARTIST 231 VIII.1 WEAVE: WOMEN’S EDUCATION & ARTISTIC VOICE EXPRESSION 231 VIII.2 BEING AN ARTIST IN SOUTH AFRICAN POETRY 234 CONCLUSION 265 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN WRITERS 272 BIBLIOGRAPHY 280 PRIMARY LITERATURE 280 Poetry collections by women poets 280 Poetry collections by male poets 283 Poetry anthologies 285 SECONDARY LITERATURE 288 Quoted secondary literature 288 Further secondary literature 293 OTHER LITERATURE 300 Novels, short stories and plays 300 Journals 301 Festival programmes 302 CD recordings 303 Online literary magazines 304 CURRICULUM VITAE 311 -2- Introduction Introduction South Africa is on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Everyone has heard of Nelson Mandela, an ‘A-list celebrity’ who is well-known worldwide, and three other South African Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu and Frederik de Klerk; of Charlize Theron, who got an Academy Award (Oscar) and a Golden Globe in 2004 for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in the movie Monster;2 of the movie Tsotsi,3 based on the novel of the same name by Athol Fugard, which won the Academy Award (Oscar) for the best Foreign Language Film in 2005; of the country as a tourist destination, with its natural beauty, diverse landscapes4 and abundant wildlife; of South Africa as being the host nation of the Football World Cup in 2010; and especially of the high crime rate and the high incidence of HIV/Aids. Also in the literary world South Africa has a reputation for the novels of Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, the two Nobel Prize winners for literature in 1991 and 2003. Yet little is known abroad about South Africa’s rich contemporary poetic tradition. Few studies have been published on contemporary South African poetry and even less about South African women’s poetry, and that despite the fact that the poetry scene in the country is extremely rich and vibrant. The title of this dissertation on South African poetry reflects its limited scope necessitated by the vast amount of literary material available. The primary focus of this thesis is on women writers. The main reason for this is, as has already been mentioned, that there are vast numbers of South African women poets who produce a wealth of poetry, the existence of which is largely unknown and where known, is greatly underestimated. Women’s poetry is relatively under-represented in publications and anthologies. In most anthologies poems by male writers outnumber those of women writers by far. This study has been carried out against the background of this discrimination, which applies doubly for women poets of colour, who are not only being marginalised, if not 2 Directed by Patty Jenkins, 2003. 3 Directed by Gavin Hood, 2005. 4 Shooting movies, video clips, photo shootings and advertisements in South Africa has become a big business for the country. -3- Introduction disregarded entirely, because of their being women, but also for the fact that they are of colour. Therefore, one of my chief aims in this dissertation is to give South African women writers the attention they are due; especially, but not exclusively, those black and coloured newcomers who are now so prominent on the literary landscape. Within the framework of giving exposure to women poets of all colours, my survey and analysis serves as a descriptive introduction to fresh texts. It seeks to broaden the scope of the research into South African literature as a whole by completing the picture of South African poetry and by contributing to the formation of a representative canon of poetry, which includes women poets. In my effort to include poets of all of the ‘South African racial groups’: Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians, I will, throughout this dissertation, carefully refer to the people of South Africa in these terms coined during Apartheid, as they are still used extensively by the South Africans of today. Given that ethnicity, language and colour determined membership in state and society in the recently abolished apartheid system, how can formerly excluded communities be recognised without perpetuating apartheid categorisations?5 Naturally, my intention is neither to belittle those who suffered, nor to condone the Apartheid system of ethnic classification. The fact is, however, that some groups and individuals have a strong feeling of community with these groupings, artificial as they may be, and unfortunately, even in the new South Africa, many old habits linger on. Although this study aims at giving a representative picture, the poets chosen for review do not proportionally represent the ethnic elements of society with which they are affiliated. For example, assuming that 75-80 percent of the population is black, the same percentage of published South African poetry is not written by Blacks. There are many reasons for this discrepancy: personal connections, the role of luck in getting published, available funding, publicity, the language of the poem etc. Unfortunately, many of these factors always have and still do favour white poets. For this reason the main focus of this dissertation will be on black and coloured women poets. 5 Abebe Zegeye. “Imposed ethnicity.” Social Identities in the New South Africa. After Apartheid. Vol. 1. Ed. Abebe Zegeye. Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2001. 2. -4- Introduction This leads to another choice I had to make, namely to decide, among the eleven official South African languages, upon the one(s) to be considered. In the interests of keeping my dissertation within reasonable limits, I elected to use only poetry written in English, and only by non-exiles.