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Njabulo Ndebele’s Speech From Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference: Should Literature Be Political?

by Lindsay on Oct 5th, 2012

Last week we brought you Antjie Krog’s speech on the place of literature in politics. The Guardian has now also published Njabulo Ndebele’s keynote address from the same Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference talk at the Open Book Festival 2012, held in Cape Town last month.

Fools and Other StoriesRediscovery of the OrdinaryThe Cry of Winnie MandelaFine Lines from the BoxCoconutMen of the SouthYoung Blood

 
At the event, Ndebele, author of Fools and Other Stories, and Krog discussed whether or not literature should be political. Ndebele started by saying that we should not be looking for a definitive answer to this question but rather examine why it is being asked in the first place. He went on to discuss examples of South African literature, mentioning Kopano Matlwa‘s Coconut, Zukiswa Wanner‘s Men of the South and Sifiso Mzobe’s Young Blood as examples of books that challenge new prejudices that have developed in South Africa.

The question “Should literature be political?” is timeless, and best approached not with a view to finding definitive, timeless answers, but to opening our minds as to why we might be asking it yet again.

In Africa, it was asked in the 1960 and 1970s during anti-colonial struggles against British, French, and Portuguese colonialism. In South Africa, particularly from the time of the 1976 youth uprising, it was posed again. Its urgency increased during the state of emergency in the mid-1980s when the apartheid regime escalated its repression. The drama of conflict at that time was clear: from a moral point of view, the state represented evil, oppressing black citizens, who joined with increasing numbers of sympathetic white South Africans in representing good.

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Cats: Events, Fiction, News, Non-fiction, Politics, South Africa
Tags: Antjie Krog, Books LIVE, Coconut, David Philip, Edinburgh World Writers' Conference, English, Essays on South African Literature and Culture, Events, Fiction, Fine Lines from the Box, Fools and Other Stories, Further thoughts about our country, Jacana, Kopano Matlwa, Kwela, Men of the South, News, Njabulo Ndebele, Njabulo S Ndebele, Non-fiction, Open Book, Open Book 2012, Open Book Festival, Picador, Politics, Rediscovery of the Ordinary, Sifiso Mzobe, South Africa, The Cry of Winnie Mandela, The Guardian, UKZN Press, Umuzi, Young Blood, Zambia, Zukiswa Wanner
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