Still Searching for a “Republic of Letters”

April 15th, 2008 by Liesl

Journalist Tiisetso Makube has been reflecting on an argument that still rankles some four years on. He recalls an evening in a shebeen with a friend who was disparaging about the merit of ’50s writers Can Themba, Bloke Modisane and other Drum “hacks”.

Whatever lather was stirred into the beer, the author of this plaintive essay has given the questions raised that night much sober attention in the interim. Read this in-depth and multi-layered article on our literary heritage (such as it might be, should we be able to drill down to its soul, says Makube) in The Weekender:

Nothing in their work suggested any serious attitude to the craft of journalism in general, and writing, in particular, said my editor friend. I was enraged. But rage renders one impotent. So my friend won that battle.
Two years ago Lindy Stiebel and Liz Gunner published Still Beating the Drum: Critical Perspectives on Lewis Nkosi. Their subject contributed several essays. One is entitled Bloke Modisane: Blame Me On History, and is testimony to the important – though not original – observation by Chinua Achebe, that any writer of significance must always re read every book that he or she has ever read in order to gain new insights into it.
Says Nkosi in the essay: “ [A]fter nearly three decades, and a rereading now happily relieved of any need for solidarity with the text except perhaps curiosity, to convince me of the book’s lasting importance as a social document, and to persuade me of its many virtues without in any way minimising its shortcomings.”
Those are the words of a literary critic, someone who clearly illustrates that the Drum Generation was not just a debauched, politically naive bunch, whose texts can be dismissed as not worthy of attention at a speakeasy in Alexandra.