96. Icebergs by Alistair Morgan

Alistair Morgan's Icebergs was shortlisted for the 10th Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2009. The story was published in The Paris Review No. 183 in 2007.

Dennis Moorcraft has moved to his plush retirement home on the coast of Cape Town after several years of work in Johannesburg. He has lost his wife to cancer and his children are abroad and the daughter who continued to live in their Johannesburg home had refused to vacate that place to join his father in Cape Town; coming only to visit. Consequently, the father is alone in the huge apartment after his wife made him promise not to give out their dream home for another person to occupy.

One late night, the FOR SALE on the house next to his came down. Mr. Moorcraft now has a neighbour. An enigmatic neighbour whose comings and goings were as sublime as the man himself. However the two individuals met and after several shots of alcohol started talking. Interests were shared and Moorcraft got to know that Bradshaw loves painting. Moorcraft told him of her artist daughter, Melissa, who comes to visit once in a while, promising to introduce her to him when she visits.

It was during one of Melissa's Cape Town visits and her father's introduction that the two: Melissa and Bradshaw, a man old enough to be his father, struck a relationship to the chagrin of Moorcraft. But Bradshaw has his secrets and when they started coming up, through several media outlets, the concern Dennis Moorcraft could no longer sit whilst his daughter is taken advantage of. But the daughter has decided and the relationship between father and daughter is already a strained one. 

"I'm just worried, Melissa. Can you understand that? Can you understand someone else's feelings for once?"

"Fuck you."

"Please. Melissa. Why don't you come over and we can talk about this properly?"

Melissa would become embroiled in political mudslinging that threatens her very life and of which survival meant giving up everything she had and those she had laboured for, the least of the two being her father, to live incognito.

This short story is a beautiful story and one I would have voted for to win the 2009 award. It packs a lot of emotions and intrigue within its few pages and shows how much more there is to Africa than the archetypal stereotypes cemented in most writers' and readers' minds. It exudes hope for African stories and even though there is political corruption lurking somewhere within its pages, it does not takeover the story. The main events surrounds the relationship between a single lonely father who still cares about his children, want the best for them but still have to decide where childhood ends and adulthood begins and her daughter set in her ways with unshakable thoughts and decisions. Should one leave ones child into the jaws of doom even when the child insist that he or she is no longer a child and his or her decision must therefore be respected? Could you sit idle, hands folded between your thighs, when you know that a particular decision would lead your love one into trouble even if that person insist on being left alone? At one point or the other we have been in both situations, and that is the beauty of the story and of life. Children always think they know what is best for them, parents always think that having acquired experience they know the effect of certain decisions and also they know the ways of the world. This is supported by a proverb in Twi which when translated is it is adulthood that no one has reached before and not childhood. This is a superb story and has all the ingredients of a short story.

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Brief Bio: Alistair Morgan was born in South Africa in 1971. He is the first non-American to win the Paris Review's George Plimpton Prize. His debut novel, Sleeper's Wake, was published in 2009 to much acclaim. He lives in Cape Town. (continue reading). His short stories: Departure and Icebergs have appeared in The Paris Review. Icebergs was selected for the O. Henry Awards anthology for 2008 and Departure was also selected for the National Magazine Awards. You can read it at The Paris Review's Site or get the pdf at the Caine Prize for African Writing Site.

ImageNations' Rating: 5.5/6.0

Other Caine Prize 2009 Shortlist: The End of Skill by Mamle Kabu

89. Underground People by Lewis Nkosi

Title: Underground People
Author: Lewis Nkosi
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke
Pages: 308
Year of First Publication: 2002
Country: South Africa

Lewis Nkosi's second novel coming after the award-winning debut Mating Birds is a unique story. Its uniqueness lies not in any attempt to create something which has never been done. Nor does it turn every sentence into a literary masterpiece, though each word, sentence, paragraph is a relish to read. The uniqueness of Lewis Nkosi's Underground People lies in its beautiful, fast-reading, and tension-building prose. And his ability to satirise South Africa's apartheid system whilst still keeping its seriousness, its human suffering closer to the reader.

Cornelius Molapo is a high-school teacher, amateur poet, speaker, a jitterbug dancer, a passionate lover and a lover of cricket. He is also a peripheral member of the National Liberation Movement, the movement fighting to end apartheid rule in South Africa. When the Pretoria Government began ceasing lands from the natives of Tabanyane for the white farmers and the NLM wanted someone to lead their field operations being carried out with the local resistance group in Tabanyane against both the Pretoria Government and the usurper to the Tabanyane throne, Sekala Seeiso, the NLM called on its most unlikely candidate, the high-school teacher, amateur poet, speaker, jitterbug dancer, passionate lover and lover of cricket, Cornelius Molapo. So when Cornelius was not seen for many days, people reluctantly suspected that he might be one of the many individuals who are being 'incommunicado' by the Johannesburg Government. The NLM, however, made a formal proposal to the Human Rights International to help them find Molapo, a party member. Anthony Ferguson, a representative of the HRI, was born and raised in South Africa but has been away for fifteen years. Having carried out successful assignments across most warring countries in Latin America and other parts of Africa,  Ferguson found that there are several reasons why this home-assignment would be no small an assignment. First Ferguson was not sure how far things have changed in South Africa and there is her celebrity twin sister, Hazel, to deal with. There is also the several winding South African laws that, though white, could entangle him.

What happens when a Tabanyane-born university-trained school teacher who has lived most of his life in Johannesburg is thrust into the mountains to fight the armed-to-the-teeth apartheid government and its local stooges for several months? Naturally, Cornelius Molapo, came to appreciate the predicament of his people; he identified with them in a way far different from what he had been inciting his listeners to do; he lived their lives and understood what it was to be a native. With time, this jitterbug dancer shed all traces of his 'city flesh' and his timorousness, taking on the hardened life of a guerrilla fighter and prepared to fight to death than give up on his people.

Set in the years - perhaps the very late 1980s to early 1990s - leading to the release of Nelson Mandela, whom in the book was referred to as Dabula Amanzi, during a period where the Immorality Act has been suspended and mix marriages were taking place with increasing frequency after forty years of apartheid and the government was losing the fight against the freedom fighters whilst finding it increasingly expensive to implement discriminatory laws, this story differ from many others that treat the subject of apartheid. In most of such stories, the struggle is peripheral to the story, shown through a broken home, through the arrest of the family head and the disintegration of the family. In such stories, the effects apartheid is what is told not the struggle, not the intentional and willing sacrifices people made to create a 'new social order'. In Lewis Nkosi's Underground People this 'struggle is the story'. However, the story is not only about THE struggle. It is also about the people in the struggle: their fears and aspirations. The breadth of Nkosi's paint brush was equal on all sides. Besides, though the subject matter is serious there are several humorous lines found scattered in the text. Describing her uncle, Sekala Seeiso, to Cornelius, Madi Seeiso said

The day you come across my uncle Sekala no-one will need to point him out to you! Try to imagine a monster six-foot-ten, with a face like a train locomotive or the front of Mount Taba Situ, and you have the exact image of my uncle. Children have been known to cry when he has but looked at them; an attempt at a smile from him is likely to send children running for shelter behind their mother's skirts. When he makes a joke he smiles so hard that his eyes seem to close up and vanish, bringing to perfection his exceptional ugliness! (Page 195)

Even the way the whites expected the natives to behave was comically presented and to know that this was actually how they were expected to behave made it all the more funny and absolutely mind-boggling. So that Joe Bulane, a lawyer by profession had to dress like a 'native' in order to outwit the authorities.

At first, Anthony did not recognise the man from the central committee. Bulane was dressed in faded old khakis, somewhat soiled and torn and sprinkled with mud, and although this was the height of summer on the highveld and the sun would soon be scorchingly hot, he was swathed in a thick army coat that looked frayed and moth-eaten, like something which might have been bequeathed to an importunate servant by a jokey employer. His face concealed behind dark glasses framed in red plastic which made him look like a friendly gargoyle. In spite of the sombreness of the occasion Anthony could not stop himself from laughing. Helpless, he leaned against the door of the car. 'Oh Mr Bulane, what a sight to greet the plains of Tabanyane!'

 Bulane peered shortsightedly at his fellow traveller: 'Perhaps you might start off by addressing me properly,' he said gravely.

'Yes, sir!' Anthony responded, unable to stop laughing.

'From now on', Bulane said, 'I am not Mister Bulane. Just plain Bulane, your native boy.' 

This is a novel that would make you laugh and think in equal measure. Its representation of life leading to the overthrow of apartheid is very vivid. Highly recommended.

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Brief Bio: Lewis Nkosi (Dec. 5, 1936 to Sept. 5, 2010) is known chiefly for his scholarly studies of contemporary African literature, and is the author of the novel Mating Birds (1986). Critics enthusiastically praised Nkosi's prose style and narrative structure in Mating Birds, and several have compared the work with Albert Camus's The Stranger. Nkosi was born in Natal, South Africa, and attended local schools before enrolling at M. L. Sultan Technical College in Durban. In 1956 he joined the staff of Drum magazine, a publication founded in 1951 by and for African writers. In his Home and Exile and Other Selections (1965), Nkosi described Drum's young writers as "the new African[s] cut adrift from the tribal reserve--urbanised, eager, fast-talking and brash." According to Neil Lazarus, the description fitted Nkosi as well. "Nkosi's whole bearing as a writer," he wrote, "was decisively shaped by the years in Johannesburg working for the magazine." In 1960 Nkosi left South Africa on a one-way "exit permit" after accepting a fellowship to study at Harvard University. Now living in England, he teaches and writes articles on African literature. In addition to the novel Mating Birds, he has also produced several plays and collections of essays, including The Rhythm of Violence(1963), Malcolm (1972), The Transplanted Heart: Essays on South Africa (1975), and Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature (1981). (Source)

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0

74. Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams

Title: Mine Boy
Author: Peter Abrahams
Genre: Novel/Race/Love
Publishers: Heinemann (African Writers Series)
Year of Publication: 1946 (this edition, 1989)
Country: South Africa

For the Top 100 Books Challenge

'You say you understand,' Xuma said, 'but how can you? You are a white man. You do not carry a pass. You do not know how it feels to be stopped by a policeman in the street. You go where you like. You do not know how it feels when they say "Get out! White people only." Did your woman leave you because she is mad with wanting the same things the white man has? ... That is understanding. The understanding of the heart and the pain of understanding, not just the head and lips. I feel things! You want me to be your friend. How can I be your friend when your people do this to me and my people?' (Page 172) 

And this serves as my summary of the novel Mine Boy, a story about love and race published two years before the official implementation of apartheid in South Africa in 1948, but which highlights the racial discrimination and prejudices that existed in South African society at the time. We follow Xuma, who has migrated from his village in the North to Johannesburg in search of a job in the mines, as he goes through one heartbreak after another. The book opens with his entry into Johannesburg where he was spotted and taken into the residence of the benevolent Leah, at Malay Camp, one of several sprawling black only quarters devoid of social amenities. This gesture is common in most African societies, where people are obliged, by tradition, to help one another, especially those who have travelled from afar, known and unknown.

After Leah got to know the purpose of Xuma's migration he offered him a job which he declined, subtly, opting for a job in the mines because 'it is a man's work' even after he had been informed that the miners 'cough and then spit blood and become weak and die'. Leah was a Skokiaan Queen dealing in locally-brewed beer, a product that has been banned, of which a culprit could serve a jail term if arrested. Abrahams used something as simple as beer to show how deeply divided the society was at the time. For as we read later when Xuma has become aware of the 'ways of the city', he questioned

Why is it wrong if Leah sells beer and right if a white person sells beer? (Page 168)

In spite of this, Leah provided for Xuma until he got a job at the mines as a Boss Boy for Paddy (or the Red One), after he was introduced by Johannes, Lena's 'man' who is 'loud and boastful and arrogant and told the world that he was J. P. Williamson and he would crush any sonofabitch' when drunk and the one who is 'quiet and retiring and soft spoken ... Gentle as a lamb and seemingly ashamed of his great size and strength' when sober. Johannes introduction as a character and his behaviour is very metaphorical. It's almost parallel to the workings of the read Johannesburg society, not finding itself, drawn by two opposing ideologies: blacks are humans vs blacks are not.

At the residence of Leah, at Malay Camp, are Maisy - the sprightly lady who made Xuma laughed even when he doesn't want to; Eliza - who love the things of the whites; Daddy - the always-drunk man who was once a respected and wealthy man, took Leah into his residence and catered for her until he began to assert his rights and mobilise people to do same; Lena who had educated children but worked with Leah; and Ma Plank a worker at Leah's place. Xuma fell in love with Eliza but Eliza is enigmatic. She wants the things she knows she could not have. She wants the things of the white man and this made her unhappy and this unhappiness fed into her relationship with Xuma, loving him and 'unloving' him at the same time. So that sometimes she would willingly decide to be with him only to leave a few seconds later. The 'madness of the city, that had affected her mood caused it to swing from one extreme to the other stochastically. But Maisy also loved Xuma and made him smile. The psychological dilemma, the torment of wanting and not having, or needing and knowing no matter how hard you work at it you simply would not achieve it plays out well. However, it could also be a mentally embedded ideology deeply seated in the minds of the natives for there were blacks who had what the white men had.

Just when Xuma thought all was well with him, after Eliza had asked him to take her as 'his woman', things began to fall apart. First Daddy died after he was knocked down by a car, then Eliza 'went on a long train journey' from which 'she will not return'. Then, Leah who had been bribing some policemen for information on their activities, was trapped and arrested. Thus, once the major tree was cut the birds had to leave and so all the people at Leah's residence left. Xuma became devastated at the arrest and jail of Leah to the detriment of his work at the mine. Paddy having noticed Xuma's desolation attempted to imbibe some activism into him. However, this activism was to rear its head when Johannes and his white master, Christian, died underground in the mines. Xuma and Paddy led a demonstration against the mine manager, requesting that the problem be solved before they go in and work. The police were called in to effect the arrest of the striking miners.

One by one the lights of Malay Camp were turned out. One by one Vrededorp and the other dark places of Johannesburg, of South Africa,  were turned out. The streets were empty. The leaning, tired houses were quiet. Only shadows moved everywhere. Only the quiet hum of the night hung over the city. Over Vrededorp. Over Malay Camp.

Regarded as the first modern novel of Black South Africa, the novel is told from the point of view of Xuma, his travails become ours and his heartbreaks too. By using the simple and everyday life of Black South Africans, Abrahams showed us how racism (or apartheid) had become endemic in South African society so that from birth to deaths one is discriminated against. It is believed that this was one of the first books to expose universally the condition of black South Africans under a white regime. And yet the author never exhibited hatred in his narration for there were likable whites as well as detestable blacks. He propounded the 'man first' ideology, as explained by Paddy to Xuma.

This is the first novel by a black South African I have read and I recommend it, as most of the SA Literature I have read, unreservedly. 

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Brief Bio: (born March 19, 1919, Vrededorp, near Johannesburg, S.Af.), most prolific of South Africa’s black prose writers, whose early novel Mine Boy (1946) was the first to depict the dehumanizing effect of racism upon South African blacks. Abrahams left South Africa at the age of 20, settling first in Britain and then in Jamaica; nevertheless, most of his novels and short stories are based on his early life in South Africa. Mine Boy tells of a country youth thrown into the alien and oppressive culture of a large South African industrial city. (Source) 

ImageNations Rating: 5.0 out of 6.0

66. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, A Review

Title: Cry, the Beloved Country

Author: Alan Paton

Genre: Fiction/Racialism

Publishers: Vintage

Pages: 240

Year of First Publication: 1948 (this edition, 2002)

Country: South Africa

Alan Paton's famous work, Cry, the Beloved Country, address interracial prejudices that existed during pre-apartheid South Africa. Though the novel was published in the very year the National Party instituted apartheid, it tells of the problems which existed before apartheid. It could be taken as the 'events' that led to the institution of apartheid.

In this novel we follow Stephen Kumalo whose brother (John Kumalo), sister (Gertrude) and son (Absalom Kumalo) had all left their home village of Ndotsheni to Johannesburg in search of employment. Earlier he had received a letter concerning the negative ways Gertrude had fallen into: brewing local alcohol and prostituting. Soon this simple search for a sister turns into a complex labyrinthine search for a son. In the big city of Johannesburg, Absalom had morphed from a country boy into a criminal whose quest for survival had led him into committing several crimes including armed robbery and violence. During one of such robberies, after he had been released from the Reformatory school, he, unintentionally, shot and killed Arthur Jarvis, a speaker, fighter and believer of equal rights. On the issue of education and the issue of what is permissible and what is not, Arthur writes

It was permissible to leave native education to those who wanted to develop it. It was permissible to doubt its benefits. But is no longer permissible in the light of what we know. Partly because it made possible industrial development, and partly because it happened in spite of us, there is now a large urbanized native population. Now society has always, for reasons of self-interest if for no other, educated its children so that they grow up law-abiding, with socialized aims and purposes. There is no other way it can be done. Yet we continue to leave the education of our native urban society to those few Europeans who feel strongly about it, and to deny opportunities and money for its expansion. That is not permissible. For reasons of self-interest alone, it is dangerous. (Page 126/127)

Paton's argument is a humanistic one and through articles and letters, he shows how important it was for the natives (black South Africans) and the general population when the former receives education. Yet, there were those who were afraid of having educated natives amongst them.

Some say the that the earth has bounty enough for all, and that more for one does not mean less for another, that the advance of one does not mean the decline of another. They say that poor-paid labour means a poor nation, and that better-paid labour means greater markets and greater scope for industry and manufacture. And others say that this is a danger, for better-paid labour will not only buy more but will also read more, think more, ask more, and will not be content to be fore ever voiceless and inferior. (Page 71)

The novel shows the negative effects of a society whose resources are unequally distributed; it shows what happens when one group of individuals is strategically prevented from accessing certain basic facilities like freedom and education. There is also the internal struggle and conflicting opinions. The title, Cry, the Beloved Country, is itself filled with conflict and struggle. For this country is a 'beloved' one yet the author refrained from using the possessive 'my' to show a closer affinity but rather chose to use the impersonal definite article 'the', as if in a way distancing himself from the negative fallouts of what is happening.

The story is poetically written. There are no inverted commas (" " or ' ') to mark direct speeches - they are marked by dashes (-), which slowed the reading for me but never intruded upon its appreciation. In fact the slow reading impressed the story into my thought. Touching on the author's poetic sensibilities, one can quote one of the three passages in which the title was taken from

There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens the pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart. (Page 67)

And such beautiful poetic lines are scattered in this novel. Though the novel exposes the immorality that has gripped the society, the dual economies that were coming up as a direct result of strategic discrimination, it also portends hope, that the sun would pour down on the earth. The village of Ndotsheni, where the Kumalos came from, was perhaps created as a metaphor or symbol for the life of natives. For the land was unproductive and desolate. Nothing was done to save it and it was gradually being eaten up until Arthur's father, Mr Jarvis, read his son's articles and realised how a part of the general problem he was; how his own actions contributed in an indirect way to his son's death for he himself had acquired huge hectares of land in Ndotsheni and through his actions the land has become desolate and unproductive leading the young Absalom seeking better livelihood elsewhere, leading to the death of his son, Arthur, who had also gone to work in Johannesburg. However, the metaphor is more revealing from the following passage:

Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret. (Page 236)

Thus, we are hopeful that as long as dawns come, emancipation would also come.

This is an excellent novel written with love at its centre, with understanding and appreciation of life. It also shows that no one is far from being evil for there were bad whites as much as there were bad blacks. Besides, as Kumalo journeyed into Johannesburg he met benevolent individuals, both black and white, such as Rev Msimangu, who gave Kumalo his life's saving, and the white lawyer who took the case as a pro Deo. 

Note that because Kumalo from whose point of view a larger portion of the story was told, is a Reverend and because of Paton's Christian upbringing, there are several biblical references. This does not affect the reading as the novel is not a moral critique novel but one that sought equality through a humanist interventions.

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Alan Paton

Brief Bio: Alan Paton (Jan 11, 1903 - April 12, 1988) was born in Pietermaritzburg (currently Kwa-Zulu Natal Province). He attended Maritzburg College and Natal University College, passing out with a degree in Physics. He taught at the Ixopo High School for Whites Students. In 1953, he formed the Liberal Party Party but was banned by the introduction of Prohibition of Political Interference Bill in 1968.

His writings include: Cry, the Beloved Country (1948); Lost in the Stars (1950); Too Late Phalarope (1953); The Land and People of South Africa (1955); South Africa in Transition (1956). Journey Continued: An Autobiography was published in 1988, a year later Save the Beloved Country was published. A poetry collection, Songs of South Africa: A Collection of Poems, was posthumously published in 1995. (Source)

ImageNations Rating: 5.0 out of 6.0

Manu Herbstein at Africa Book Club

One of my reading challenges is to read the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners (Best and First book winners) and on this list is Manu Herbstein's Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. This story won the award in the first book category in 2002. Manu Herbstein was interviewed by Africa Book Club. Issues discussed ranges from his dual citizenship, how he came to write this novel and what the future holds for him as a writer. According to the structural engineer cum writer, it is best for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to sponsor writers than their futile search of past presidents to award. Here is an excerpt of the interview. 

Tell us a little about yourself, and your background.

My grandparents arrived in what was then the Cape Colony in the last decade of the nineteenth century. They had fled religious persecution in Eastern Europe. (I was brought up as a Zionist but I now look forward, though with faint hope, to the day when Palestinians and Israeli Jews can agree to live together in a single secular state.) I grew up near Cape Town and studied there until I left South Africa in 1959. I planned to return after the demise of apartheid, which seemed unlikely to survive the sixties. It took longer than expected and in the meantime I put down roots in Ghana. These days I try to spend December and January in Cape Town.

What's the story behind your dual-citizenship? We understand you are both South African and Ghanaian.

I first went to Ghana in 1961, drawn there by the charisma of Kwame Nkrumah. I worked there until 1963; and again from 1965 to the end of 1966. I have lived in Ghana since 1970, so when the citizenship requirements were relaxed it made sense to apply. I’ve had a Ghana passport since 2006. I retained my South African citizenship throughout the years of apartheid, though it sometimes required subterfuge to have my passport renewed.

Click here to read the full interview.

50. AmaZulu by Walton Golightly

Title: AmaZulu

Author: Walton Golightly

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publishers: Quercus

Pages: 634

Year of First Publication: 2008

ISBN: 978-1-84724-586-1

Country: South Africa

'In times of war Legends are born in blood'. This is the statement on the cover page of Walton Golightly's epic novel AmaZulu, which tells of the deeds of Shaka KaSenzangakhona, the founder and father of the Zulu people. 

Writing was unknown to the Zulus of Shaka's day, and although many books have been written about this phase of our history, all draw from the same primary core texts. For historians this constitutes a major stumbling block. For writers, however, it's an invitation to play ... (page 635)

And with this invitation to play, Golightly mixed facts with fiction and created a story that would hold the reader's attention till the last word is read. 

Written in a mix of tenses and persons, the story tells of the birth of Shaka and how his father Nkosi Senzangakhona KaJama, refused to accept Nandi's pregnancy, attributing it to a stomach illness caused by the intestinal beetle, Shaka. To mock him and the people who stood behind the Shaka's father, including his uncle, Mduli, Nandi named his son Shaka, after the intestinal beetle. Though she was quietly installed as one of Shaka's father's wives, they were later to leave The People of the Sky, Zulu, to Dingiswayo of the Mthetwas. This was where Shaka learnt all he needed to become a great warrior, taking the Ruler, Dingiswayo, as a mentor and a godfather. And when Shaka was ready to take over the rulership of Zulu it was Dingiswayo who brought father and son together and who made him promise that Shaka is his legitimate son, and therefore by age he becomes the ruler of Zulu after his death. All this was to avoid usurpation of powers as Shaka had not lived in Zululand and any attempt to take over the headship by thrust would be considered as such.

Later, with Mgobozi as his war General and Strategist, Shaka was to expand the Zulu nation by defeating several tribes including the Langenis, and their arch-enemy, the Ndwandwes, whose chief Zwide - the Devourer of Kings, had killed Dingiswayo and Zwide's mother, Ntombazi of the Skulls, whose collection of skulls kept growing by was devoid of one particular skull, Shaka's. Shaka's reign was marked with fear, bravery, war, and expansion. He knew what he wanted - to be a bigger Nation, known to all and he knew exactly how to get this. Shaka's inspiration was provided by his mother, Nandi, and sometimes Pampata, Shaka's favourite. Through the cleverness of the latter and the inspiration of the former Shaka became a feared figure in all of the lands. His bravery and achievement preceding him, everywhere he went.

Shaka's reign was similarly marked by the might and intelligence of one Induna and his udibi - a young servant. The Induna served as Shaka's shadow and so wherever he went he represented Shaka. It was the Induna who released the Sotho people from the Baboon gods, who killed the great snake of the fish-eating people, where Shaka had also stayed during their flight from Zulu, who killed the man-eating people and who was later to fetch Shaka's Ubulawu.

The Ubulawu, was supposed to be the King's talisman bringing him power and good fortune and it was a requirement that every King gets his and it is him alone who would be able to see it as it could be anything. And though Shaka has being prodded by his mother and Dingiswayo, when alive, to seek it, Shaka had refused, believing that his disciplined and trained army, his lovely mother, were his ubulawu. And when Nandi died and he descended into rage, killing anybody whom he sets eyes upon and instituting harsh laws, Shaka was to finally seek his ubulwau, if his hard-earned Kingdom was not to be lost. Sitting all along on the sidelines was Dingane, The Needy One - Shaka's half brother - scheming to gain control of the kingdom. 

Walton Golightly

The story was set in the nineteenth century, at the period where the Ma-Iti or the Arabi - the White settlers - who were to later control South Africa instituting apartheid, were arriving and forming cunning alliances.

Reading this story is like watching a movie. It has a precise use of language and the mixing of the Zulu language with English was done to perfection. Every foreign word used has been explained in a way that does not distract from the reading but in a significant way strengthens it. Walton has done an excellent job in providing us with a vivid account of a great personality whose deeds has stretched beyond the peripherals of his kingdom and beyond what he could have imagined possible, albeit mixing it with fiction. Every chapter is capable of holding the readers' attention in a way that most acclaimed stories don't and given the size of the novel, this is no mean feat.

My only problem is that events seem to peter out in the tail end of the story and that could possibly be because during that period, Shaka was himself lethargic and mildly psychotic. Again, I would have been happier to have read the writer's view Shaka's death. 

This is a book that every bibliophile should have on his or her shelf. It is a great addition to ones collection. Even if fictitious in its creation, Walton Golightly took time to educate us on the Zulu tradition and culture, and to create a believable figure in Shaka KaSenzangakhona and his people, something which deserves great commendation.

ImageNations Rating: 5.5 out of 6.0

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part V - J. M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee

This is the concluding part of a series began in the last week of September. John Maxwell Coetzee is the last African and second South African to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Currently J.M. Coetzee is a citizen of Australia.

Born in Cape Town on February 9, 1940, Coetzee attended St. Joseph's College and later studied Mathematics and English at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1960 and 1961 with Bachelor of Arts with Honours and  Honours in Mathematics respectively.

Coetzee worked as a computer programmer at IBM from 1962 to 1965. He later worked for the International Computers Limited in Bracknell, Berkshire. During this period he was awarded with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cape Town for a dissertation on the novels of Ford Max Ford. He later received a PhD in Linguistics in 1969 from the University of Texas with thesis topic on the computer stylistic analysis of the works of Samuel Beckett. He taught English and Literature at the University of New York before he was arrested for criminal trespass together with 45 other faculty members who had occupied the university's Hall. He returned to University of Cape Town where he taught English and Literature and in 1963 promoted to Professor of General Literature.

Coetzee spoke against the limitations of art in South African society under the apartheid regime, calling on the regime to abandon its apartheid policy. Some scholars and readers claim that his Booker-winning novel Disgrace allegorises the South African Truth and Reconciliation Council.

Coetzee has won many awards including being a three times winner of the CNA Prize. His novel Waiting for the Barbarians was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Age of Iron was awarded the Sunday Express Book of the Year award. The Master of Petersburg was awarded the Irish Times International Fiction Prize in 1995. He also won the French Prix Femina Etranger, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the 1987 Jerusalem Prize for Fiction of the Individual in Society. He was the first author to have won the Booker on two different occasions for Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999. He was shortlisted in 2009 for Summertime  and longlisted in 2003 for Elizabeth Costello and in 2005 for Slow Man.

On October 2, 2003, John Maxwell Coetzee won the Nobel laureate for his

...well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance

Bibliography

Coetzee's published work consists of fiction, fictionalised autobiographies and non-fiction.

Fiction

•  Dusklands (1974)
• In the Heart of the Country (1977)
• Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
• Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
• Foe (1986)
• Age of Iron (1990)
• The Master of Petersburg (1994)
• The Lives of Animals (1999)
• Disgrace (1999)
• Elizabeth Costello (2003)
• Slow Man (2005)
• Diary of a Bad Year (2007)

Fictionalised Autobiography

• Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997)
• Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002)
• Summertime: Scenes from Provincial Life (2009)

Non-Fiction

• White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988)
• Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992)
• Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996)
• Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986-1999 (2002)
• Inner Workings: Literary Essays, 2000-2005 (2007)

Read about J.M.Coetzee here and there...

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part IV - Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer

This week's Know Your Laureate of African Origin presents the only female Nobel of African Origin, Nadine Gordimer.

Nadine Gordimer was born on 20th November 1923 around Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand Mining town outside Johannesburg. Her parents, Isidore and Nan Gordimer, were Jewish Immigrants and it was them who shaped her earlier views and interests in racial and economic inequality in South Africa.

This views were spurred on by the arrest of her friend, Bettie du Toit, was arrested in 1960 and the Sharpeville Massacre. Being an active critic of the apartheid government of South Africa saw her works being censored. For instance, The Late Bourgeois World was banned in 1976 for a decade; A World of Strangers was banned for twelve years. Other works received lesser duration ban such as Burger's Daughter was banned for one month. July's People  was also banned under apartheid, and faced censorship under post-apartheid government as well: In 2001, a provincial education department temporarily removed this novel from the school reading list, along with works by other anti-apartheid writers.

Gordimer's first published work was a short story for children The Quest for Seen Gold, which appeared in the Children's Sunday Express in 1937, when she was 14 years old; Come Again Tomorrow, another children's story appeared in Forum around the same time. At 16, she had her first adult fiction published.

Gordimer has won many awards such as the Central News Agency (CNA) Literary award in 1974, 1975, 1980 and 1991. In 1974, she won the Booker Prize with The Conservationist. She holds at least 15 honorary degrees from several universities including Leuven University (Belgium), University of York (England), Cambridge University (England), universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand (South Africa).

In 1991, she won the Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Gordimer has been active in the HIV/AIDS movement. In 2004, she organised about 20 major writers to contribute short fiction for Telling Tales, a fundraising book for South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.

Bibliography

Novels:

• The Lying Days (1953)
• A World of Strangers (1958)
• Occasion for Loving (1963)
• The Late Bourgeois World (1966)
• A Guest of Honour (1970)
• The Conservationist (1974)
• Burger's Daughter (1979)
• July's People (1981)
• A Sport of Nature (1987)
• My Son's Story (1990)
• None to Accompany Me (1994)
• The House Gun (1998)
• The Pickup (2001)
• Get a Life (2005)

Short fiction collections

• Face to Face (1949)
• Town and Country Lovers
• The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952)
• Six Feet of the Country (1956)
• Friday's Footprint (1960)
• Not for Publication (1965)
• Livingstone's Comparisons (1970)
• Selected Stories (1975)
• No Place Like: Selected Stories (1978)
• A Soldier's Embrace (1980)
• Something Out There (1984)
• Correspondence Course and other Stories (1984)
• The Moment Before the Gun Went Off (1988)
• One Upon a Time (1989)
• Jump: And Other Stories (1991)
• Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972 (1992)
• Something for the Time Being 1950-1972 (1992)
• Loot: And other Stories (2003)
• Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black (2007)

Plays

• The First Circle (1949) pub. in Six One-Act Plays

Essay Collections

• The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places (1988)
• The Black Interpreters (1973)
• Writing and Being: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (1995)

Other Works

• On the Mines (1973)
• Lifetimes Under Apartheid (1986)
• "Choosing for Justice: Allan Boesak" (1983) (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)
• "Berlin and Johannesburg: The Wall and the Colour Bar" (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)

Edited Works

• Telling Tales (2004)
• Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

Read about Gordimer here and there.

Library Additions and Other Award News

What would you do when you have searched for a book for so long and the time you found it, at a bookshop, you had only as much money as would take you back to the office? Do you buy it and walk, knowing that the distance between your current location, the bookshop, to your destination, the office, can in noway be covered by walking; or would you forgo it and risk spending another ten years or more searching for it? I chose the former and prayed for a miracle. And this is how come I have in my possession Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. Yeah! But I did not walk after the purchase. Miraculously, I met a friend who also love Ayi Kwei Armah and he lent me some money for transport and also got himself a copy.

In Other News

Shachi Kaul

The Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2010 winners have been announced. The overall winner was Shachi Kaul from India with Retirement. Shachi is a banker and former hotelier. She started writing during a sabbatical from work. Chief among her goals is to tell stories rooted in contemporary India that resonates with people everywhere. Her writing--both prose and poetry--is beginning to appear in thematic anthologies in Asia. Currently, she is working on her first novel.

Karen Jennings

The African Region winner was Karen Jennings from South Africa with From Dark. Karen was born in Cape Town in 1982. She holds Masters degrees in both English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. In 2009, she won the English Section of the Maskew Miller Longman (South Africa) Short Story Competition with her story The Shark. 

Shola Olowu-Asante

The Antie Isong Special Prize for a story coming from Nigeria was won by Shola Olowu-Asante with Dinner for Three. Shola was born in Nigeria but lives in Edinburgh with her husband and two children. She is a freelance broadcast journalist and has only just begun to try her hand at creative writing.

Read the rest here.

36. Before I Forget by Andre Brink, A Review

Title: Before I Forget

Author: Andre Brink

Genre: Novel (Reflective)

Publisher: Vintage

Pages: 311

Year of First Publication: 2004 (this edition, 2008)

Country: South Africa

"You died at seventeen minutes to ten" is the first sentence in this reflective novel by Andre Brink, a two-time Booker Shortlist author of An Instant in the Wind (in 1976) and Rumours of Rain (in 1978).

The story, written in the first person but shifting between the present and the past, is a tribute by Chris Minnaar, a writer at the twilight of his life and career, addressing a loved one, who had just passed away. This love one is young Rachel who, though married, together with her husband, has kept Chris Minnaar, the first person writer and narrator, as a friend and a member of their family. Chris reminisces all the fun he had had with her and how he appreciated it. However, Chris intelligently tells his life story through this 'address' by digressing from a given point he is making or rather linking an incident he is describing with another that had happened many years past, mostly with the involvement of a woman. A romantic or erotic involvement as such. Yet, this digression seemed to be unintentional and the gap between the present and past is difficult to point out.

Though Chris Minnaar, hadn't written a novel or better still completed one since the mid-nineties he uses this address, this talk of his life to write something like a memoir. The book (or memoir) was written like the rantings of an old decrepit man, who is eager to record his lascivious deeds before he dies. As a result it is achronological, moving back and forth to tell the story according to how best his memory serves him. Again, since it is like a rant, an intelligent and readable rant, the book has not been divided into chapters but in un-numbered sections, marked by spaces. 

In the story, parallels are made between erotic love and the war in Iraq, and Chris's love for Opera, especially Don Giovanni.

With the many encounters with women, which almost always results in sex, one is likely to describe the book as sexist. But is the book sexist? May be yes! Emphatically no! However, it has a sex twists to every incident including the war in Iraq. This is what Chris has to say about the Bush's war in Iraq:

There may be much more behind the whole war than oil. Perhaps macho America is finally finding a way to break out of a terrible depression brought on by women's liberation and by the crushing blow inflicted by 9/11 on the two phallic towers that embodied the national male ego. A Bush in hand is worth two birds (Page 105)

Iraq may well be Bush's big wet dream, his passage into his own warped notion of manhood. It is sickening to behold (Page 121)

Besides, over ninety percent of the women in the novel had sex with Chris including a German lecturer Grethe who, as a visiting lecturer, had sex with thirteen (13) male lecturers and died of cancer a month later and a 'Hotnot' South African girl who had sex with both Chris and his father, when the Immoral Act was at its peak. There was also a girl who begged to be strangled during sex. This lewd representation doesn't mar the quality of Brink's prose. It elevates it, for he is able to handle his subjects with such dexterity that it salvages it from utter baseness.

Though some may feel the book to be filled with Freudian concepts, this is what Chris wrote concerning one of his relationship with a particular lady

Andre Brink

... I was up in arms with her, against the world of men deranged by testosterone. I wanted to protect her, I had to protect her; and for once the very fact that she was beautiful, and vulnerable, ensured that I would never dream of taking advantage of her... (Page 142)

And Chris Minnaar is neither a sexist nor patronising of his women. For it was after his non-amorous encounter and friendship with Rachel and his husband George that he realised, perhaps, the futility of his earlier libidinous encounters; that he realised that marriage, after all, may have something good in it.

Again, the book isn't all about sex and wine and fun. It was written on the backdrop of a country that was struggling through political uncertainties: the Sharpeville event, the Soweto '76 crisis, and the release of Mandela. The narrative-author, Chris, had a lot of bushes with the government of the day in relation to what he wrote in his novels.

Chris's main interest in writing about his life is because of his amnesiac mother, who at 102 years couldn't hold one regular conversation with his son without digressing. Thus, Chris at 78 years wanted to write down his deeds before he forgets, like his mother. However, his mother, even at that age spoke of freedom that was denied her and it was something that came up constantly in her irregular conversations with her son. This is what he said to Chris during one of his visits to her at her old age home

Nobody said a word about his philandering. They all looked up to him, envied him. But if I dare to go out with a man on a Saturday night, even if it is for a meal or a film, all the fingers point at me (Page 280)

And this was after the death of her husband.

My problem with the book is that, scenes are too predictive. One can easily guess what would happen to a lady who has just been introduced into the story. There were some diversions but they didn't pull me in. And this made the scenes and the telling to monotonous. I also think the character, Chris, could have been more complex. Besides, it took too long for us to know what really happened to Rachel and even when it came it was like a sentence or so long.  In effect, I enjoyed Praying Mantis more than I enjoyed this.

However, there is a lot to be learnt from this novel and  I would recommend it to any reader. But if you detest reading about sex please don't read it, though it is not so detailed and too graphic to cause much discomfort.

Man Booker Shortlist 2010

The Man Booker Shortlist came out yesterday, September 7, 2010. The list has been shortened from the longlist of thirteen (13) to a shortlist of six (6). This time the brouhaha that always follows a shortlist has been slightly muted as most people agree that all the shortlisted authors deserve to be there. Yes! But The Man Booker Prize, worth 50,000 Pounds, would not be Man Booker without the slightest controversies concerning those who are shortlisted. So the absence of Christos Tsiolkas, the Australian author of The Slap and David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, has become an issue and it is very well being discussed by literary enthusiasts.

ImageNations interest is in Damon Galgut's In A Strange Room. If Damon's shortlisted book wins the Man Booker Prize he would be the third South African to win the prize, after Nadine Gordimer won with The Conservationist in 1974 and J.M. Coetzee won with Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and with Disgrace in 1999. He would also be the fourth African to win the Booker Prize, after Ben Okri won the award in 1991 with The Famished Road.

Damon Galgut

In a Strange Room, voted 7/1 to win the Booker, is a tale of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion. The author, Damon Galgut, was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1963 and wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was 17. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 for The Good Doctor. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs and The Imposter.

The Shortlist

1. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
2. Room by Emma Donoghue
3. In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
4. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
5. The Long Song by Andrea Levy
6. C by Tom McCarthy

ImageNations wishes him well.

New Acquisitions and Other News

News Item One: AmaZulu by Walton Golightly

I have got myself a copy of Walton Golightly's first novel, AmaZulu. I have not read any review of this novel before. I bought it because a friend of mine, Obed Sarpong, has a copy. 

Back of the novel: 1818 SOUTH AFRICA: The searing wind of change is sweeping across the African continent s the European powers clash over the lands they consider to be theirs by right of conquest and settlement.

But in th homeland of the Zulu tribes, a new power, which will change the course of African history and soak its soil in blood, is preparing to fight back. The warrior king Shaka begins his ruthless and violent rise to power, a path that will lead to the birth of the Zulu Nation and the formation of its legendary Impis--units of the most disciplined, courageous and fearsome army the modern world has ever known.

About the Author: Walton Golightly is a freelance writer from Durban, KwaZulu-Natal--on the doorstep of what used to be the Zulu Kingdom. He's a film buff with a passion for Spaghetti Westerners, '70s action movies and the films of Jean-Luc Godard. AmaZulu is his first novel. He shares his life with a few thousand books and two dogs. Occasionally the dogs let him sleep on the bed. (As written on the second page of the Novel).

The book was published by Quercus in 2008, however it was originally published by Kwela Books a division of NB Publishers (Pty) Limited, Cape Town, South Africa in 2007.

I purchased this copy from the University of Ghana's Bookshop at 6 Ghana Cedis or US$ 4.29.

News Item Two: ImageNations in Business and Financial Times (Friday July 9, 2010)

Hurray! The interview I had with author, Nana Awere Damoah, was published in the Friday July 9, 2010 edition of the Business and Financial Times. It is interesting to see how far ImageNations is going. Thanks to you all. You can also read this interview from the B&FT homepage.

News Item Three: What You Need to Know About Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, and the Perceived Problem with Chinua Achebe. 

Read this in the June 2010 edition of the only truly African magazine NewAfrican. It sells for GHCedis 3 but the information it contains is worth much more than the price tag. The title of the article is "Armah--in his own words" on page 92. Ayi Kwei Armah, whose novels I have reviewed on this blog, is one of the very few novelists who live what they writer. Thus, it is virtually impossible to differentiate what he says with his pen from how he lives his life. Recently, he has established and publishing company called Per Ankh, that is republishing all his books. If you don't have any of his books rush to the University of Ghana's bookshop and you would get a copy. 

Some Quotes from the Article: 

Seeing myself as an African, I had though it natural and logical to choose work that, in my estimation, would help the creation of a new society in Africa (page 93)

My writing may be inspired at times, but the inspiration comes not from palm wine or yamba, and definitely not from heaven or hell. It comes from knowledge acquire through regular, systematic research (page 94).

27. Praying with the Mantis, A Journey of Faith and Identity

Title: Praying Mantis

Author: Andre Brink

Genre: Novel (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

Publishers: Vintage

Pages: 275

Year of First Publication: 2005 (this edition, 2006)

Country: South Africa

Praying Mantis is a novel about faith and identity and the need to be in tuned with one's origins. It tells the story of Cupido Cockroach and his strife to convert his heathen-folks to Christianity and to God. However, this novel is not about religion.

In the beginning Cupido was a womanizer and a good hunter. He was also a good follower and friend of Heitsi-Eibib, his god. But he got converted to Christianity, got baptised and later became an acolyte and a preacher of the Christian god.

So strong was his faith in the new god that he physically beats up everybody who refuses to convert Christianity and remains hard-hearted. At the peak of his faith, he literally chewed and swallowed. a whole bible. However, the more his faith in the Christian god grew, the poorer he became. Whilst in the service of the Lord he lost his wife, Anna vigilante, and children unexpectedly. Later he was to lose his second wife and children. His second wife deserted him when he was posted to a desolate place, Dithakong, a place where he neither speaks nor understands the language, to convert his African brothers but was neglected by the all-white Missionaries in the Cape Town. He was neither paid, nor provided for and slowly he sunk deeper into wretchedness, lost all his congregation and became one with his desolate place. So deserted did he become and stronger was his faith that after losing all his congregation he began preaching to the stones and the dying trees. This he did until in the end he was rescued by his own god (after he has written a letter to god telling him that the end has come for him) and was carried away by an Arend, as his mother had promised him when he was just a child. 

This is a novel about the lost of one's identity. Cupido, after his baptismal, considered everything about his people as heathen and vehemently stood against everything they did, including those that he loved most, the moon festivals. Yet, in the end it was the discovery of his identity, of his roots and the showing of reverence to them that saved him from his sorry state.

This novel is a well-researched novel and even though it is a work of fiction, most of the characters in the novel lived and did most of what they were described to have done in the novel. The life and times of Cupido and the numerous letters he wrote to the Mission when times became unbearable, according to the author, are 'scattered through the numerous documents of and on the London Missionary Society in South Africa'. However, 'the most detailed account of his life to date is "The Life and Times of Cupido Kakkerlak" by V.C. Malherbe'.

This novel spoke to me on different levels: identity, faith, belief and many more. It is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend

ImageNations' Rating: 6 out of 6