A radio documentary about Eastern Cape writers…sounds simple enough doesn’t it? Oh wow, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
When I decided that the topic of my half hour radio documentary would be a look into the lives of Eastern Cape writers I never anticipated the sheer volume of writers that there are in Grahamstown and the surrounding areas or how much writers like to speak about themselves and their writing. One of my biggest challenges has been deciding who to interview, I thought people would be wary to do interviews with me but I got an overwhelming response of people willing to help me. I have ended up doing six interviews in the last three weeks with a wide range of writers and plan to do more in the week to come.
At this point I’m looking at the process of writing, why people write and what inspires them? What they want others to get out of their work etc. There is also the publishing aspect, what the process is, how easy or hard it is to get published. Because of the nature of the documentary I decided I wanted a wide range of people involved, those that have been successfully published and those that are struggling to get their work out there and also different writers in terms of their background and work. I have found myself speaking to a lot of poets simply because there are so many in Grahamstown. I will chat about each interview in detail but have found that I need to look more at poetry in African languages and possibly oral poetry. But most importantly I think it is important to show the specific connection of these writers to the land of the Eastern Cape and its people.
Ok let’s not get bogged down by the semantics of where the documentary is going, let me begin the journey, come along with me…
Interview 1: Jeanette Eve
I drive into one of Grahamstown’s nicer retirement villages in search of Jeannette Eve, retired author of A Literary Guide to the Eastern Cape. She is a lovely friendly woman who welcomes me into her home to talk about the book that was her labour of love for nearly 10 years. This book is not a guide to the literature of the Eastern Cape but rather a guide of the Eastern Cape through the eyes of its authors and poets. We have a lovely interview and she explains her work for the National English Literature Museum (NELM) before her retirement and how this book came to be. She gives some insight into why she thinks the Eastern Cape doesn’t get enough attention as a travel destination, referring to it as the “Cinderella province of South Africa”. Jeanette gives me a lot to think about in terms of who I will be speaking to and the kinds of things I will talk to people about. Her book seems to be a good guide for me as well on my journey.
Interview 2: Chris Mann
I find my way to the St Peter’s building on campus. I guess I was always aware that it was there but had never been inside. I find the office for the Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA) and am directed up to the top floor to the office of Professor Chris Mann. He is a quirky interesting man who offers me tea before we begin the interview and is suddenly inspired to sketch a drawing on his white board that is some kind of literary joke (‘many poets in search of a reader’). We struggle to get his ridiculously loud computer to switch off before we begin the interview. It turns out to be a rather interesting one, not always positive but he has lived an interesting life and has great ideas about how to improve literacy rates in the Eastern Cape and SA in general, because “the future of writers is linked to the future of literacy”. I’m still finding my feet in this interview and trying to find out as much as possible on this literary journey. This is a very deep interview, philosophical and wise in many ways but also rather strange and unsettling on some level.
Interview 3: Russell Kaschula
Next I meet Professor of African Languages, Russell Kaschula in his office in the Rhodes University School of Languages. This is one of the most enjoyable interviews I have conducted; Professor Kaschula is an open and interesting man. He grew up on a farm in the Eastern Cape and spoke isiXhosa before he spoke English and he has such a profound connection to this land that it is hard not to be in awe of him, we speak about his work as a writer of short stories, teenage novellas and poetry. He is very interested in oral poetry especially the spontaneous Xhosa poetry of Imbongi’s (isiXhosa oral poets) and has documented a great deal of the history of oral Xhosa poetry. I feel rather inspired after this interview to find a writer so interested in the interests of the youth and the fact that he wants his writing to make people think. I ask the dreaded question of where he gets his inspiration and he replies that he is “inspired by relationships between people from different cultures, that’s what really gets me going, exploring those dynamics”. His writing speaks to the complexities of identity that exist “within people from extensively different cultures within a contemporary South African existence” so far the journey is leading me up some interesting paths.
After a little break from the documentary hunt to finish work on my participatory project, this week my work on the documentary has gone into high gear and I spoke to some more interesting people.
I’m in search of a children’s author to speak to and I’m directed to a local woman who is doing a very different kind of children’s writing.
Interview 4: Lynette rudman
Lynette makes handmade tactile books for blind preschool children and I head off to her workshop and home in Somerset Heights to see these interesting books. She is a lovely welcoming woman who explains how she began making the books for a little blind girl at the preschool she used to run and how since then the success of the books has just snowballed. She now has orders from all over the world because it seems that these kinds of books are a rather unique creation. Lynette is an interesting success story, an entrepreneur who has found a great niche market but who is also doing a valuable public service with her work. It’s a rather enjoyable afternoon
Interview 5: Robert berold
My next interview was probably the one I was the most nervous for. Robert Berold is a pretty well know poet and a generally well respected creative writing teacher and editor. I have done research, read interviews he has done and a lot of his poetry in preparation, my preparation pays off and I end up getting a great, very long interview with this interesting man. We speak philosophically about what it means to be a poet about how he fell in love with poetry in Matric and how poetry became like a narcotic to him and why he gave up editing other people’s work. This interview leaves me with a lot of things to think about
Finally my last interview of the week was with a rather different kind of poet
Interview 6: john forbis
Brother John is an American Monk who was one of the founding brothers of the Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery just outside of Grahamstown, and has lived here for the past 10 years. As I wind my way up the dirt road I can see the monastery across the valley, I am welcomed by poet Br. John Forbis and we sit and chat for a while about both why he became a poet and why he became a monk. His accent seems to wax and wane between American and South African as he speaks of how these rolling hills outside of the window inspire him to write. He shows me around the grounds and the chapel in particular grab’s my attention, it is perched on the edge of a cliff with a huge window looking out onto the rolling Eastern Cape hills. It is so beautiful and John says to me in jest “who needs stained glass when we have that”. I feel a real spiritual charge in the place and long after I have left I am still thinking about what we spoke about, it seems that our meeting was equally memorable for him when he email’s me later in the day to say he thought more about my questions and thinks he might have thought of better answers. I plan to go back next week and record some of the singing from one of their 4 daily church services.
This project has got me really thinking about the power of literature in people’s lives. It seems that for many poets’ art and spirituality weave together into their work but on different levels for each one of them. I guess my job is now to weave this story together and give a true and accurate depiction of what it is to be an Eastern Cape writer. My journey continues…
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