Dodging bullets and filling holes

Evolution of the mind is a beautiful thing to behold. While reading The Museum of Innocence last week sometime, I was mesmerized by the layers of expressiveness, the obsessive, deep emotion, the frivolous made real in so many ways. Orhan Pamuk's writing can be easily put down for another day, or drowned in so totally that the rest of the world of work is reduced to background noise. Please note spoiler alerts from here onward, for if you plan on reading the book!

And so, the reason for my having bought and read this book on a whim quickly revealed itself to me. You see, while reading the book, I was taken by the idea that I could, after what seemed like ages, read a book just for the fun of it.
But then, I got to the latter chapters and was treated to the conversation between the author and the protagonist. And I was completely blown away. I realised then, that this was no mere coincidence. I was certainly not just reading this book for the fun of it!

This book turned uncanny in it's message to me. It was also rather unpredictable.

Readers of this blog will know that along with the courses that I present, I have been engaged in the research and write-up of a political biography over the past two years. This means that I have had the honour of meeting and interviewing some interested veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle; various gregarious and surreal personalities from around the world, Paris, the UK, South Africa and India.
The journey has been hugely satisfactory for the most part; a delight in many ways.
But I've said this to a few friends, that the writing of biography also feels on some days like a project of dodging bullets and filling holes. I know - it sounds a lot dodgier when it's said that way. It's not a literal exposition at all. But it's every bit as crazed and meandering as its meant to sound.

Until I read this book, that is. Orhan Pamuk's written conversation with his protagonist, Kemal Basmaci, is for me as a biographer, ultimately revelatory and highlights the many features of the biographical process and the importance of giving it authentic subject voice.

And many things regarding the telling of the tale; defining the idea that it's easy to want to write 'everything' that gets dumped in your lap. That there are many people who are loathe to the idea that much will be revealed therein, details which they had hoped would never see the light of day. [Some will go to lengths to make sure this status quo remains unaltered.] That there are some who will make fraudulent claims to history, when in fact they were never really at the front line, as the unsung heroes really were. There are many who will have the story from their viewpoint. And then, there is the view of the protagonist. And this is all that matters. In this way, the biographer's job is made clear cut, if not simpler.

I learned these things from Orhan Pamuk.
And I think that the path has been cleared for me to go on.

Everything for a reason, then. No coincidences, only plan.

S

The Museum of Innocence

I had never considered the possibility of an eloquent expression of anguish, until I picked up a copy of Orhan Pamuk's 'The Museum of Innocence'. This is my first foray into the world of writing that encompasses Pamuk's genre of work. Having won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 for his novel 'My Name is Red', Orhan Pamuk is widely read and loved, and I can see why.

This Place I Call Home

Book Review: This Place I Call Home by Meg Vandermerwe (Modjaji Books, 2010)

Home is a place of rest. For an observant South African writer, spanning the expanse of time, history, culture and landscape, the concept of home is also a thematic vehicle.

Meg Vandermerwe’s debut book, ‘This Place I Call Home’ is a collection of ten stories that easily captures the feel of what it is to be South African from just as many points of view. Peering through the eyes of a hijack victim, a hunter, a domestic maid, an exile about to return home and a range of others, the reader is made to see how identity is constructed, altered and challenged in a country that has seen many versions of reality in its time and across the reach of its political horizons. In addition, it also captures what it is to be a foreigner in South Africa especially with the spate of xenophobia that we witnessed not too long ago. Needless to say, each of the protagonists grapples with haunting emotional challenges in their personal spaces that are inevitably reflected by the socio-political landscape. These stories tell us much about where we have come from as individuals, separated by the colour of our skins, the hierarchy of our place on the social ladder, and the baggage that we carry as we move forward as South Africans.

Vandermerwe also manages to capture the authentic voice of each of the protagonists in her stories, which is an impressive feat on the one hand, but can be a bit jarring for a reader moving through the stories one after the other. One has a sense of listening to a line-up of ten people narrating each of their encounters, or reliving a particular moment that was formative or impactful, and then it’s on to the next one. More so because of the shift in timelines. But it is also precisely because of this that the many colours of their narratives standing side by side, tend to blend into a remarkable anthology of South African-ness that makes for a must-read for historians and anthropological enthusiasts.

But there’s more. We all have significant markers of identity and home. That is, how we make sense of both where we are, and who we are in the world is determined by the associations we make with particular things, specific encounters. Vandermerwe highlights these and the reader will find it easy to draw on the nostalgia that these markers evoke: a mango tree, a dictionary, the anticipation of a holiday or having heard of the story of someone returning home from exile. There are stories of loss and grief and hope and redemption to be found in this little gem of a book. Protagonists are challenged by disease, broken promises, xenophobia and a range of subjects that the reader is able to identify with; these stories will carry forth from the local to the global context an authentic flavour of the multi-coloured African dynamic. And the resounding theme of what it has meant to be South African, over the span of time and politics, comes through in the sentiments expressed by each of the protagonists; a domestic servant, a madam, a hunter’s aid and his master.

Vandermerwe deals in astounding detail with the issue of HIV/Aids, the inevitable cloud of superstition that surrounds the disease and the reliance or the faith that people place in traditional vs. modern medicine. The Red Earth is probably my favourite read in this anthology. Its characters don’t jump out at you; rather they sit beside you and allow you a peek into their deepest thoughts. They reveal their fears and prejudices. To me, that is the most remarkable accomplishment of the fiction writer; the ability to give the reader the opportunity to more than identify or sympathise with the character, but to really walk in their skin, taste and feel and dream as they might.

I particularly noted how Vandermerwe is able to denote class struggles in the local context, and the resultant mindset that arises from having to know your place. Inferiority is a powerful voice. Often more so than superiority. It reminds you mostly of the things that you do not deserve. And that you should know your place. This is the marvel of the post-colonial era. And it continues to be echoed in the economic reality that separates the haves and the have-nots. The writer achieves this balance in portraying both the yearnings of those on lower rungs of the social ladder as well as the expectations of those who teeter on the edge of the higher rungs of this shaky ladder. And so the reader is made to see at once the numerous layers of South African history as well as contemporary South African society beyond the shining tourist manuals. We also learn that if there are spaces that are sometimes unforgiving to South Africans, that these spaces can be even more threatening to ‘aliens’. In our insistence to claim our place, our home, we label the outsiders mercilessly. Strong notions of other-ing resound through the narratives. And we are made to ask questions of whether our existence is validated by this defining of ‘other’ and the subsequent removal of the alien other from what we claim to be our space. Narrative is a safe yet interesting way for these themes and debates to emerge. This Place I call Home is a book that manages to do this.

That the reader is made to read in the authentic voice and viewpoint of the character with such ease is the most enduring and positive attribute of this writer’s art. And this is what brings these stories home for us.

Home Away: Book Review

Never have I been so vividly held captive by the intricate balance of metaphor and narrative as I have with this new work-of-art compilation of travel writing that is Home Away. This spectacle of South African writing is anything but isolated lekker local stuff; rather it reveals the truly global flavour of being South African at home in the world at large.
Edited by Louis Greenberg of ‘The Beggar’s Signwriters’ fame, twenty-four writers have been handpicked, each to envisage an hour in a day in a particular city in the world. It is as Greenberg suggests, a collection of ‘…stories (that) blur fact and fiction; they contain a dozen languages and two dozen versions of the truth. Together, they write a South Africa for tomorrow that yesterday would not allow.’
At the very beginning, the anthology kicks off with the excitement of this whirlwind tour around the world in just one text. Vikas Swarup sets the scene as your conductor to begin this journey; be prepared. In addition you will meet an alter ego in each writer as you move along. You will be whisked through Nairobi at midnight, with a plot to kill a politician, and then taken briskly through Mauritius, Amsterdam, Sydney and Mainz before you can think of drinking sunrise. Havana is the last of the poetic night rendezvous; you wake up in the warm arms of Kampala. Not white. Not black. Purely African.
Through the morning you are swiftly guided through Lagos, Maun, Ushuaia, then onward to Oxford, Tokyo and the City of Angels, Los Angeles. After lunching in British Columbia you will commit the perfect crime in Moscow before being shown how to juggle odds in Dakar. It’s mid-afternoon in Patmos and Peru before you know it and you’re treated to glimpses of London and Austria. Ivan Vladislavic enlikens Oklahoma City to the Free State. A flavour of being South African lingers through the mind of each writer, each voice displayed here. The evening is rounding up. But it’s not over yet. Fairbanks greets you before you rush off to Paris.
Finally, a happy ending awaits in Hong Kong. The clock strikes midnight.
You may raise a glass of the finest. You’ve earned your wings!

And so at once, the reader is made aware upon opening these pages, that it’s a good idea to keep your seatbelt fastened until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. This is only going to happen when you have finally reached the last page.
Home Away occurs as a series of freeze frames. Rather, it feels as though you’re watching twenty four short films through the eyes of twenty four actors; each on cue waiting their turn to play their part on this wordy stage until the hour hand on the clock has made not one, but two complete circles. A day slips through the sands of time.
I had the pleasure of attending the Johannesburg launch of this new masterpiece on May 13. About ten of the 24 authors were present, including Greenberg, the editor and creative genius behind this work. While it’s true that these 24 hour segments occur as flashes from 24 different cities around the world, it also bears mentioning that these 24 writers capture very different temperaments, flavours and energies linked to their respective stories.


In this gem of a collection is to be found more than varied armchair travel, and much more than you bargained for if you were looking for entertainment. These narratives also tell much about the sense of place and displacement that comes of traversing geographical boundaries, sometimes out of choice, often because of some extenuating circumstance. A war, a heartbreak, a recession, an escape. Something might happen that causes a land of promise to turn hostile. And so you leave.
Our love affairs with land and country can be quite fickle. This love-hate relationship with our environment is vividly shown to mirror our ways of relating to people in Home Away’s string of motion picture type stories. We learn that how we create our identity is strongly linked to where we imagine we belong in the world.
And that the fluidity of both our identity and where we might be situated in the world, is a fuel to each other. Sometimes we want to stay where we are. Sometimes we just have to leave. We have to move on. And yet other times, we know that we will inevitably find our way back to the place we always called home.

The twenty-four resounding voices in Home Away echo one thing: that our sense of place and feeling at home in the world will always be foreshadowed by the ability to feel at home with ourselves. These ideas resonate throughout the book and its chain of narratives.

It’s impossible to choose favourites in such a harmonious treasure of writing, but I would like to share just three sips from the ocean of Home Away. The reader has to read the entire collection to be truly quenched:

‘In Kampala there are moments when I forget that I am white. The woman who is here doesn’t feel like a middle-aged, white South African woman. The light is muted. The air is warm. She imagines she is black, that she has lived here all her life, that she is truly African.’ The warm arms of Kampala by Colleen Higgs


‘In this perfect stillness, noise is obscene. I know this because a loud thump has jolted me out of my slumber. Even before I am fully awake, my Palaeolithic self is in full panic, flight-ready: adrenaline surging, heart thumping, muscles rigid, ears pricked for the slightest clue as to the source of the sound. I wait.
… I haven’t been back in Sydney for long. Evidently, this is my Joburg self reacting: naked feral fear, fear so habitual that you no longer notice it’s there. It takes a while to learn to let go of the unceasing anxiety… Here, in the dark of the middle of the night, I must learn to be an expat again. Remind myself that I have nothing to be afraid of, congratulate myself on my escape.’ Redundant by Sarah Britten

‘With or without electricity, my favourite city in the entire world is not dissimilar to a series of quick, sharp slaps to the cheek… My first slap comes at 7:01. I wake up suddenly to the sound of a street fight brewing outside my open bedroom window. I listen intently; the fog of sleep quickly lifts and my mind and body are alert, ready for a day in Lagos.’ The Generator Man by Moky Makura

Note: Royalties from the sale of Home Away are being shared between the Adonis Musati Project and Kids Haven. Both organisations deal with the needs of refugee children and families.

Say You're One of Them...

Book Review: 'Say You're One of Them' (Abacus, 2008) by Uwem Akpan.

We make easy associations of images with the stereotypes and myths that have come to be a part of how we make sense of society. Social divisions, national identity or age have come to be markers of behaviour and the way we relate to each other. So when we think of childhood, we have at least some amount of sweet, fantastical memory attached to it. The memory of being a child certainly would have held some moments of pleasure. So it might come as a spoke in the movie reel to digest the idea that childhood is a commodity in Africa. And Uwem Akpan brings this idea to life in his bestselling book ‘Say You’re One of Them’.

Never have my notions of identity and society been as steeply challenged as they have been on reading this beautifully orchestrated telling of story, this compelling oratory. Because that is what a book like ‘Say You’re One of Them’ must be described as. The words don’t just sit there, lame, impotent as letters on a page might be expected to; they jump up at you and dare you to piece the puzzle together, they dare you to drink in the images that are revealed of Africa’s brutality towards the most innocent fruit of her womb. The children of Africa.

Akpans anthology of five stories take us on an armchair travel from Kenya to Benin, than onward through Ethiopia, Nigeria and finally, Rwanda. And along this journey, the reader is held at the edge of the armchair rather than calmly settled into it. The stories are striking in their detail. Akpan makes no apology for revealing to the sanitised reader what life in Africa demands of its children.

We continue to insist that greed and survival are two vastly different concepts, and yet when we are made to see how they collide and bring the face of humanity to commit up until now, unspeakably inhumane things, then we are forced to realise the reality of childhood in a continent weighed down by inequality, unrest and all things antithetical to a natural way of being.

Uwem Akpan reveals this as his intention early on, and with little effort. And his methods vary: in each of the stories he is able to bring to the narrative the flavour and tone of the original language, be they indigenous African languages or the tongue of the colonial French. He takes this method further in his display of language as beyond the realm of just words and geography.

From the outset, this tapestry of stories expects you to step into the bare feet of a small child. At that point, the dust is removed from in front of you and any evidence of childlike innocence torn from your soul. You have to get it at last: this is what it is to be a child in Africa.

But once that veil of innocence has been removed, the ageless wisdom and resilience of children is beautifully emphasized. Akpan by no means glamorizes Africa. While his love for his continent of birth is tangible, we are made to see through the eyes of child prostitutes, beggars, those being readied for trafficking and those torn from each other on the basis of imagined social lines; Hutus from Tutsis, Catholics from Muslim. And then Akpan extends his metaphor: if it is the children who bear the brunt of society’s dysfunctions in the family unit, then it is Africa’s children who bear the brunt of a world wrought with inequalities.

There is also to be found a profoundly moving statement in the sadness of each of these stories, and yet it is the strength of these tiny examples of humanity that resonate for the reader. The power of the need to survive, to surpass the pressure of an unfair world adds a lustre. But there is work to be done and Akpan does this by allowing us to dig through the grime of the stories in order to find those inevitable questions about where it is that we might find ourselves on the scale of greed and survival. Without a doubt, it also draws a line in the sand between what it means to be a child in the world, in Africa, in the lands of the North and the South. And the answers glare at the reader defiantly awaiting rejection of their truth. Do we dare to deny that these brutal stories are more fact than fiction?

If Akpan compels the reader to continue turning the pages, and manages to awaken an almost denialist sense that such things might occur in the contemporary social world, one thing that we certainly cannot deny is his superb mastery of storytelling, his ease with language and metaphor. His writing is marvellous; his characters believable. Their experiences are a drought to the soul, but they serve as a reminder and awaken the compassionate in us, in sheer rejection of the evils that befall the weakest among us, mainly children.

Akpan succeeds in many ways as a spiritualist, as a humanitarian, as a storyteller in both bringing characters to life as well as stoking the fires of social awareness and conscience in the reader.

But most of all, he succeeds in showing the triumph of human spirit above the adversity that offends and challenges many of Africa’s children on a daily basis.

oOoOo

Uwem Akpan was born in Nigeria on May 19, 1971, in the southern village of Ikot Akpan Eda. Both of his parents were teachers and he and his three brothers grew up speaking English and Annang. He joined the Jesuit order at the age of 19, in 1990 and became a priest on July 19, 2003. He has also studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of East Africa and philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga University. He later earned an M.F.A. degree in creative writing at the University of Michigan in 2006. ‘Say You’re One of Them’ is a collection of five stories from Africa. Of these stories, ‘My Parent’s Bedroom’, set in Rwanda, was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2007, and longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award in 2008. After completing a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe, he is now at a parish in Lagos, Nigeria.

oOoOo

http://shafinaaz.com

Greedy for Air

I've been enjoying my round of fiction reads this month.

Just last week, I got through "The White Tiger". Much can be said about a book that openly reveals that greed and survival are really not the same thing. The human mind forever fascinates me. The limits we place upon ourselves, as well as the new frontiers that are challenged in those finite boxes of sanity and insanity are largely unexplored. There are, I believe, yet to be seen examples of how much the potential of the human mind will surprise and enthrall, and yes, even horrify the 'clanging masses' rest of us.

Taking from the White Tiger, although situated in India, the story has echoes of relevance for South Africa; not just from an 'Indian' point of view, but also if we were to take both a human and then even an inhumane outlook. Okay, let's not pretend that we're one swathing mass of loving humanity; there are amongst us those who will sell their mother's left hand given the right blend of conditions.

Writer's like Adiga are adept at bringing that 'potential' of the inhumane human to the fore; of highlighting the irreverent contradictions of what it is to be a human being. And while I would like to imagine, still, that it takes much of a stretch of the imagination, I know at some rational level, that I would be kidding myself: I had barely put the pages of The White Tiger to rest, when the ET debacle exploded right in our midst. Not even for 7lakh rupees. Just. Dead.
Was it because of years of pent up Hatred?
Was it an act of Love?

I don't really want to know. A human life was slaughtered at the hands of people maimed by his own acts of terrorizing them over years. Do we really reap what we sow? This might be an apt example. Still, a human life is so easily rendered to a bag of bones and flesh and blood that oozes back into the womb of the earth. We're so easily turned back into the clay from which we came.
All material, mortal. There it is again. Mortality looks back from the mirror everyday.

Which brings me to the new book that I am reading, and reviewing, this time, for an Afrikaans paper: 'Say You're One of Them,' by Uwem Akpan. I am just learning, that childhood is a commodity in Africa. Akpan brings this idea to life in his book.

And. midway through the book, I am blown away. Now to scrape and claw for some moments of objectivity. Watch this space.

S