neglecting indigenous African literature
18 February 2008
The Minister of Arts and Culture Dr Z Pallo Jordan has strongly criticised
the publishing industry for failing to promote books in indigenous African
languages. Jordan was speaking at a function to launch the re-issue of South
African classics at the National Library in Pretoria last Monday.
The event was attended by more than 300 guests who included writers,
publishers, artists and various people from the sector. "Virtually from my
first day in office in June 2004, I entered into a rather fruitless dialogue
with our South African book publishing sector.
"As one who is keenly aware of the huge disparities in our society and the
gaping deficit we inherited from centuries of colonialism and decades of
apartheid, I felt it was incumbent on me to spur our publishing industry to
undertake publishing in indigenous African languages in earnest," he said.
Jordan charged the National Library to forge partnerships with old
publishing houses like Lovedale, Tygerkloof and Morija in Lesotho to re-issue
the classics in African languages re-issued. These include books like the
widely acclaimed isiZulu novel, Inkinsela yaseMgungundlovu (voted among the
best 100 books in Africa) by Sibusiso Nyembezi, Ke Eng? By ML Bopape (SePedi),
Mulunguntima by TH Khosa (Xitsonga).
"I abandoned the hope of the commercial publishing sector coming to the
party. But I long for the day when I can walk into exclusive books, or any
other bookstore in this country, and find shelf upon shelf of books in the
African languages.
"What we are doing is rediscovering something that has been mislaid for well
nigh half a century. We are, in a sense, excavating a dimension of indigenous
literature by raising awareness of works of quality that have been produced
over more than one hundred and fifty years in the languages spoken in the
majority of homes," he said.
Jordan insisted that the indigenous literature needed to be accessible and
defended authors who wanted to express themselves in their mother-tongue.
"The orature and literature that has been produced by the story-tellers and the
writers in indigenous languages are essentially no different from that in any
other in these respects. What is specific to it is the environment in which the
tales unfold.
"But they reveal and wrestle with the very same human frailties, foibles,
idiosyncrasies and human robustness we found in other literatures. If no one
else wishes to preserve these works, we as South Africans have a responsibility
to our nation and humanity to ensure that they survive into the future," he
said.
For further information, call:
Sandile Memela
Spokesperson for the Department of Arts and Culture
Cell: 082 800 3750
Premi Appalraju
Media Liaison Officer
Cell: 082 903 6778
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
18 February 2008
