Local is real for EC writers
Three authors who spoke about their work at the Bathurst Book Fair on Sunday 1 May take Eastern Cape cultures and characters to their limits. It's not always lekker, but it'sunmistakeably local.
Zodwa Mtirara kicked off a session that explored how local essence makes Eastern Cape writing special with readings from her newly published poetry collection, Thorn of the Rose; Ingqumbo Yomthondo Kukuzika Kohlanga.
Born in Mthatha, Mtirara grew up in Gauteng, where she spoke mosly English and Sesotho. The NMU Music Education graduate never for a moment imagined writing in the language of her early childhood until she met head of Creative Writing at Rhodes University's
School of Languages, Dr HlezeKunju. Kunju's academic achievements include writing the University's first PhD thesis in isiXhosa.
"He said, 'No, I think you can write in isiXhosa,'" Mtirara told an attentive audience in the lounge of Bathurst's Pig and Whistle Inn. She could. Her poetry collection, in both English and isiXhosa, is also her Masters thesis.
Boxed in by staunch Christianity and isiXhosa traditions, Mtirara challenged stereotypes to be "all the women I was told not to be". Writing in isiXhosa is an essential part of that process, as is her profoundly physical imagery in poems like 'When I am done being a woman'.
She puts herself in someone else's shoes for the taboo reality of rape within families, in a poem that ends, "The person who dies is the one that will not kill."
For Vivian de Klerk, local flavour and places is "what I know - it's what I feel when I walk these pavements". Set in the 60s, 70s and 80s, her dark domestic thriller Not to Mention is set in 14a Masonic Street in Port Alfred Among the many aspects that make it "real" are archival clippings from The Herald and the black Croxley notebooks left over from Standard 7.
The main character of De Klerk'sSerpent Crescent pretty much embodies THAT person on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group who complains about pretty much everything. And in case you wondered whether her fictional Qondo (formerly Georgeville) is based on a place you might know, what annoys sociopath Megan Merton are cows and donkeys eating rubbish, and a perpetually smouldering rubbish dump.
Retired Rhodes University English lecturer and prolific writer Dan Wylie spoke about the rich well of stories within a small town like Makhanda. His futuristic novella Wisdom of Adders brings his strong concern about the environment into a tangible, local context.
The session was part of the Speakers Programme coordinated by Bathurst resident and journalist Marion
Whitehead, as part of the 17th annual Bathurst Book Fair. With Book dealers Pete Moseley and Ian Balchin (Books of Bathurst and Fables Bookshop) as the backbone, the event centred around the Village Green and the Pig and Whistle Inn.
"It was such a success," said Whitehead. "Bathurst was buzzing and the stallholders were really pleased with the outcome. Even St John's selling books at R20 each made a whack for the church.
"The area is full of writers and we felt we really needed to make something happen again after a two-year hiatus," Whitehead said.
"Look, we're not Franschoek [Book Festival] - we don't have sponsors - but we have a good pool of local talent to draw on."
Pony rides, alpaca petting, a children's story corner and food stalls made it a family event and several made the trip from as far afield as Gqeberha, East London and Riebeeck East.