kagablog

i

the last time i saw so many so-called whites (only) faces staring back at me in a hall was in 1980, just before i matriculated. but granted, that was the high period of apartheid and the so-called blacks weren’t allowed in then. so what is going wrong with the franschhoek literary festival? and yes it is true that victor dlamini was in the audience and he did make a point about skin colour not mattering in the digital domain because, well, it doesn’t; and it’s true that karabo kgoleng was almost in the audience - the hospice hall was sold out and there was a queue to get into the event leading back out the hall and into the scullery where karabo was standing. a packed event, well over 70 paying people, and only two of them “of colour” as the euphemism goes. and both of them are being paid to be there, are attending in their official capacity.

but does that matter anymore?

i think it does. in south africa, in 2009, 15 years on from the so-called “end of apartheid” it strikes me as unhealthy, perversely so, that an event which carries the kind of cultural cachet as the franschhoek literary festival should be playing to all white houses. could one read this startling demographic as a sign that the so-called blacks aren’t interested in literature? or perhaps that they aren’t interested in paying to see writers talk about literature? or that so-called black audiences are only interested in attending panels where there are so-called blacks to look at. (curator ben williams selected the panel i was on, which also included lauren beukes and stacy hardy, based on his impressions of who was actively involved in the new media expanded literature environment). i don’t know the answer to these questions. i suspect that there are a lot of so-called black and coloured readers and writers out there (and especially in the western cape) who simply feel alienated by the festival. i don’t know if that perception is fair - probably the organisers of the festival will have something to say on this point - but i believe the perception to be real and therefore it should be addressed.

ii

eben venter, the author of one of the most intriguing and disquieting south african novels ever, horrelpoot, was in the audience and he disagreed vociferously with my observation that in holland literary books are purchased voraciously as a mark of class consciousness but rarely, if ever, actually read. i believe this phenomenon to be not only true in the netherlands, but increasingly so here in south africa. who has the time to read all of the new south african novels that are being pumped out by the dozen? is the current publishing boom indicative of a real wave of interesting fiction or the frenzied twitching of an industry that is hoping to sustain itself against the challenge of the new digital media by using the bulldozer combination of volume and hype?

iii

i have been reading fernando pessoa’s book of disquiet for two years now. i’m only halfway through the book. and before you rush to complain that pessoa wasn’t a south african author - well, he was. he lived in durban until he was 19 years old and attended the same high school as i did, durban high school (dhs). pessoa’s modernist masterpiece was not even published in his lifetime, it was never part of any mass market concept, never part of a publisher’s hype to sell books. it’s the most extraordinary book i’ve ever (not yet fully) read. the use of language is glorious, painstaking, enhanced by a complete lack of interest in the market, in readers, in selling itself. it is language from thoth to hermes and back again. pessoa writes for the gods of writing. how much of what is being presented at the franschhoek literary festival is literature at all, in this sense? i don’t honestly know, i don’t have the time to read all these books. does anyone?

aryan kaganof