MARCH • socials
24 2013
and writers from around the world saluted deceased struggle icon Phyllis Naidoo at the 16th Time of the Writer Festival’s opening night in Durban this week.
Official formalities were to begin at 7.30pm, but the city’s literati were already out in force by 6.45pm to welcome some of the 19 writers at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, which is part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College Campus. Its packed foyer hinted at how wellattended an event the festival was to be, with attendees literally rubbing shoulders with writers as they fetched drinks and nibbled on crackers.
A “blue-light” vehicle drove up to the theatre entrance, presumably to drop off Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s lady friend Gugu Mtshali, who was among the many officials and academics who joined guests for the function.
The audience, once comfortably settled, was treated to Zimbabwean band Tanga Pasi. Host Tiny Mungwe then introduced the night’s keynote speaker, UKZN deputy vicechancellor and humanities college head, Cheryl Potgieter, who galloped through her speech. She mentioned that this year’s festival theme was “Writing a New World”.
The glamorously dressed professor spoke of the challenges faced by human sciences and her hope that the festival would stimulate necessary conversations about social issues. Her speech, which sounded like it had actual footnotes, bristled with a number of interesting subjects. It mentioned debates around the power of writing to challenge bigotry; whether or not a writer’s ethnic background obliged them to write in their mother tongue and whether the dawn of the digital age really spelt the end of books as we know them.
Potgieter also spoke of a critical theory which suggests that young men internalise violence through rough, but glorified, sports like rugby. She mentioned the story of murder-accused Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius as one “we all lapped up as another reality show”.
Then she asked audiences to think about why violence in sports is “considered masculine and appropriate” and whether society questions the way it puts sports stars on a pedestal.
The spotlight then shifted to the changes that have been made in the world. Anti-apartheid activist Phyllis Naidoo’s friends Kiru Naidoo, Ela Gandhi, Linda Zama, Willy Leslie, Julie Frederikse and Viroshen Chetty paid tribute to the recently deceased teacher, lawyer and writer. Naidoo died of heart failure in February. They all stood in line on the semi-darkened stage with their faces lit up by the glow of the red candles they were holding.
Chetty, who worked with Naidoo on some of her books, was the first to speak. His lively and poetic reading painted Naidoo as a gruff, bossy, rebellious and kind woman who’s favourite word was “damn”. “What do you want to know about me that you won’t find in my damn stories?”, he remembered her asking. He recalled her anticipation of a launch date for another publication in the days just before her death. “Although she was frail in her last days, we knew that armed with a launch date, she would start bullying and badgering,” he said. He summed her up as “a giant of a writer” and a “colossus of an activist”. He then stepped aside for Kiru, Gandhi, Zama, Frederikse and Leslie, who captivated listeners with excerpts from Naidoo’s books.
The festival’s opening night was many a thinker and bookworm’s dream.