Literary critic Stephen Gray understandably balked at the suggestion from an acquaintance that South Africans leave their stories for others to write. Having published numerous works himself, including Remembering Bosman (most recently) and Selected Poems 1960-92, Gray nonetheless found himself hard-pressed to present a defense, and ultimately, it seems, has taken a seat in the opposition’s camp.
South African writers have failed to assert ownership over the country’s grand narratives, says Gray, presenting a litany of themes seized upon by literary uitlanders that SA pens, to his mind, should have got to first.
Is this true – do we ignore our own stories? Gray’s evidence is plucked mainly from the past: he doesn’t mention the plethora of SA books that take up contemporary SA issues, for instance – books like Antjie Krog’s Begging to Be Black, Mamphela Ramphele’s Laying Ghosts to Rest and Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift.
But Gray does wheel out some big names – Thomas Pynchon, anyone? – and utlimately this firepower might carry the debate. Muster your thoughts, then read on:
Why is it Thomas Pynchon writing wonderfully about the Bondelswart Rebellion of 1922 (in his V. of 1961) and then again about the raucous Abbé de la Caille in the Cape, measuring out the world bit by bit (in Mason & Dixon of 1997)?
Why the Canadian Alistair MacLeod dealing with recent immigrants into South Africa (in No Great Mischief of 2001 and his Island stories of 2002)? Following on from the devastating Scotsman, Irvine Welsh, writing about growing up on the East Rand (in Marabou Stork Nightmares of 1996)? Why was it left to the spectacular Spaniard, Javier Marias, to deal with the last of our De Wets, flying his mercy missions against fascism into Abyssinia (in Dark Back of Time, published originally in 1988)? And the Congolese Emmanuel Dongala to launch ditto in French for insurrectionists within South Africa itself (in Jazz et Vin de Palme of 1982)?
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