Literary festival stimulating, but for one ‘racist’ sour note
The talented Mgqolozana’s outburst swims against the stream of reconciliation
ONCE again Ann Donald and her organising committee can bask in the accolades that undoubtedly will come their way after yet another fine and successful Franschhoek Literary Festival. I am, however, concerned at the political direction in which our festival is drifting.
A literary festival, in the true sense of the word – and Franschhoek does advertise their festival as such in its statement a “celebration of books and readers” – is where authors and ardent readers, all of whom gather on a regular basis at a particular venue on an annual basis, foster a culture of love of literature.
There are many literary festivals globally that aspire to that philosophy. The Semana Negra (Noir Week) is such a festival, one of Europe’s biggest, where year in and year out crime writers seek to break down the barriers between high- and low-brow writing – always an interesting debate.
The true essence, too, of a literary festival is also captured by the Hay Festival in the UK. There, a big debate that came to the fore recently was that of Michael Horobrin, professor of English at Magdalen College, Oxford, who attacked the “grammar police” for being too pedantic about the use of spelling and commas in the English language, with reference to spelling of “their” and “there” and “it’s” and “its”.
In the process, he invoked the words and thoughts of George Bernard Shaw and Stephen Fry as protagonists, and Lynne Truss as antagonist.
In similar vein, at our festival over the weekend past, how energising and stimulating was Wielding Words hosted by Darrel Bristow-Bovey in conversation with John Boyne and Chris Bradford, and Take Their Word For It, masterfully led by Ben Williams talking to Jenny Hobbs about her collection of writer’s quotes, and Sue de Groot about her reading of writers’ missteps and peculiarities, not to mention the discussion led by Wendy Woodward with the eloquent Ian McCallum and Dan Wylie about using poetry to convey nature and its crises.
The only sour note was the astounding utterances by Thando Mgqolonzana, albeit within the confines of the brief, saying that white people should stop going into townships doing charitable work but rather, he says, concentrate on having conversations with the perpetrators of racism.
He further said that he feels marginalised when he comes to literary festivals with predominantly white audiences. Whatever spin that is applied to this racist pronouncement that Eusebius McKaiser applied in the Cape Times, May 18, does not make up for the venom spewed out by Mgqolozana. He is a talented author and screen writer and his outburst swims against the stream of reconciliation. He owes the white doctor an apology as well as his hosts, the organisers of the festival.