Africa

Dan Matulis, Brea Boyd, Kysa Paul Dr. Ssensalo African Literature December 8 2011 Term Paper Introduction Africa, the second largest continent with an expansive population of 700 ,million people which is home to a tropical climate, amazing species of animals, and over 800 languages and cultures. This land is full of singing, dancing, drumming, and concerts. The Republic of South Africa is a parliamentary democracy comprising nine provinces which is located at the southern tip of Africa, with a 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an enclave surrounded by South African territory. South Africa is known for its diversity in cultures and languages. There are eleven official languages that are recognized within the constitution. The languages are: Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaan, Venda, Ndebele, Sepedi, Setswana, South Ssesotho, Swati and Tsonga. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and Coloured South Africans, and South African English. Though English is commonly used in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most-spoken home language. South Africa is and ethnically diverse country. About 79.5% of the South African population is of black African ancestry, which is divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, nine of which have official South African status. South Africa also contains the largest communities of European, Asian, and racially mixed ancestry in Africa. In addition to South Africas ethnically diverse country it also call itself home to seven difrent tribes. The thee largest tribes: Sotho Tribe, Zulu Tribe and the Xhosa tribe. The next four tribes are not as big but have as much tradition and culture. They are the: Bushmen /San tribe, Ndebe tribe, Lemba tribe and the venda tribe History The San people were the first settlers in the country of South Africa ; then the Khoikhoi and Bantu-speaking tribes followed. The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, launching a colony that by the end of the 18th century numbered only about 15,000. These settlers were known as Boers or Afrikaners, and speaking a Dutch dialect known as Afrikaans, the settlers as early as 1795 tried to establish an independent republic. After occupying the Cape Colony for a year, Britain took permanent possession in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, bringing in 5,000 settlers. Anglicization of government and the freeing of slaves in 1833 drove about 12,000 Afrikaners to make the “great trek” north and east into African tribal territory, where they established the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine years later brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and prompted Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot takeover of the land. Rhodes's scheme of sparking an “outlander” rebellion, to which an armed party under Leander Starr Jameson would ride to the rescue, misfired in 1895, forcing Rhodes to resign. What British expansionists called the “inevitable” war with the Boers broke out on Oct. 11, 1899. The defeat of the Boers in 1902 led in 1910 to the Union of South Africa, which is composed of four provinces, the two former republics, and the old Cape and Natal colonies. Louis Botha, a Boer, became the first prime minister. He organized political activity among the Africans which started with the establishment of the African National Congress in 1912. For our group project, we all had to do a presentation about the life of and cover every piece of literature done by our particular author. For our group we were assigned to cover the life and works of Phaswane Mpe. South African writer Phaswane Mpe was born September 10, 1970 in Northern Polokwane, which is now known as Limpopo Province or Pietersburg. He studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he completed his MA in African Literature in 1996. This was followed by a Diploma in Advanced Study in Publishing at Oxford Brookes University, in 1997. Between 1996 and 2001 Phaswane lectured in African Literature and Publishing Studies at Wits University, where he was held in high esteem by students and colleagues alike. As being from a tribe is important in Africa, we were unable to distinguish as to which tribe Phaswane was from. But we were able to find out what language he spoke; Sepedi and English. The slide with the map was important to include because it helps the audience get a chance to visualize where it is we are talking about. This particular map had Pietersburg labeled, so everyone could know where it exactly is that Mpe is from. In Phaswane’s native language the city is called Polokwane, but in every English map the city is called Pietersburg. We also took the chance to show the audience where Johannesburg is located on the map. The Hillborow from his famous work, Welcome to the Hillborow is a business district just north of Johannesburg. From the map, the audience was able to see and visualize where exactly these important locations in South Africa are located. The late Phaswane Mpe had a small array of work. He had one debut novel, Welcome To Our Hillbrow. He published numerous articles in local and international journals, contributed chapters to book anthologies, submitted articles and book reviews for several newspapers, as well as wrote a critical essay based on post-apartheid literature. Most of Mpe’s literature was focused on the post-apartheid. Post-apartheid was a “system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained.” (Wikipedia) Along with his only published novel Phaswane Mpe’s had a book called Brooding Clouds, which is a collection of short stories and poetry that have been published as a tribute to him. The next slide I did was over the significance of Phaswane’s literature. This slide is important to the entire presentation because it validates our author’s importance to his country and to the world for this writings. Although Mpe died at an extremely young age and really published only one book, his influence left behind from that book, and other works he managed to release before his untimely death. Mpe’s strong and lasting influence in African literature came about due to his writings of the post-apartheid struggles to get freedom and equality in a world consisting of unemployment, poverty, and AIDS. He made the AIDS epidemic well known and well documented throughout the world, and showed the ignorance and lack of awareness that allowed the virus to spread so quickly and rapidly through the country. It is because of his dedication to the modern era and a modern issue that he wrote about, that he is an impact full author. The last thing we put on the slide is a map of Africa with ever country divided out and colored in from white to dark red in shades indicating their infection rate with the virus. The white colored countries on one extreme were countries consisting of one to two percent infected, while the dark red countries are ones in which AIDS has found its way into thirty percent of the countries population. South Africa happens to fall into the twenty to thirty percent infected percentage. Next in order was the slides covering Mpe’s only published book in his lifetime, Welcome to our HIllborow. This novel of post-apartheid South Africa is a modern classic story, telling of a community struggling against AIDS, poverty, and racism. The themes of this story are AIDS, death, betrayal, and the theme of traditional living styles clashing with modern cities. The characters that bring this book to life are Refentse, Lorato, Sammy, Bohlale, and Refilwe. Refentse, is the main character of the story, he is the person who’s perspective the reader experiences during the story. Refentse’s love is Lorato, a Johannesburg woman who lives with Refentse in the Hillborow. Lorato does not get the approval of Refentse’s mother because she is from the city and is an untrustworthy person because she is not from the village of Tiragalong. Sammy is a wealthy black man in South Africa and a close friend of Refentse. Bohlale is the lover of Sammy in the Hillborow. And Refilwe is a former lover of Refentse who still has feelings for him throughout the story. Welcome to our Hillborow starts off with Refentse going to work, but forgetting something at home. He goes back to his house and to his surprise walks in on Sammy, his best friend, and Lorato, his lover sleeping with each other. Devastated, Refentse jumps off of the top of his apartment complex and kills himself. The rest of the story is told from Refentse’s perspective in heaven and the thoughts he has going on in his head. Looking back on his death, Refentse thought of how he had done no different to Sammy a bit earlier. One night Sammy spent his time drinking in the bar and with other women. Distraught, Bohlale goes to Refentse for help in the matter. Refentse wanted to help his friend out with his relationship, but on accident ends up kissing her while trying to comfort her. The two continue to have sex with each other, not realizing the consequences that were about to happen. The two decide it would be best to never tell Sammy, although while he is in the hospital Bohlale attempted to inform her lover of the past scandal, only to get run over tragically by a car on her way to tell him. Had Refentse known the lightness of the actual situation he walked in on that morning and how Sammy’s intentions were none different than his own just a little while before he would have not taken his own life. But because he assumed that Lorato was casually sleeping with Sammy and because of the grief he was going through, choosing Lorato over the approval of his mother, he felt as though he had no one left in life to turn to. As a result of his death, Refentse finds himself being joined in heaven by Bohlale, who was killed by a car, Lorato, who killed herself out of guilt over the death of her lover Refentse, and his own mother who was burned alive for suspected witchcraft and abandoning her own son. Sammy ended up going insane as a result of the situation and all of the deaths around him. Refilwe, the second main character who we experience a lot of the story through, was devastated when she found out about the death of her former lover that she still had feelings for, Refentse. Refilwe grew up in the same village of Triagalong with Refentse, far away from the makwerekwere, or outsiders that bring poverty and disease, of the cities. Naturally Refilwe did not like Lorato because she had the heart of her former lover, and blamed his death solely on Lorato, claiming that she was a dirty Johannesburg woman that could not be trusted. Refilwe had been with Refentse since they were young children and were in love when Refentse lived back in his native village. The reason Refentse left her was that he found out that she had four other lovers that she was seeing while she was dating Refentse. Because of this, he left her and never really looked back. However in Refilwe’s mind, she thought she would be with him once more in time. Devastated by the death of Refentse, she thought a lot about what they could have been if he had not killed himself. Thoughts of Refentse followed Refilwe to England, where she studied at Oxford University for her graduate work. While in England she learned a lot about the world and how it saw Africa as a whole. The terms she had used to talk about foreigners that were not welcome like Makwerekwere were now being used against her, but this time there were calling her something different. They were calling her African, with the same connotation. This shows the reader that even in modern times, ignorance and racism are still prevalent in today’s society. As she continued to learn at Oxford, she started to become ill. After seeing a doctor, Refilwe had learned that she and her Nigerian lover were spreading and infecting each other with AIDS and that she had had it for the last ten years. Refilwe was now forced to go home and face the humiliation as she went home, claiming AIDS, and lived out the remainder of her life until she died. The story ends tragically, as Refilwe personifies the stereotype of the South African people, and the lack of awareness that leads to her death. Mpe’s next novel Brooding Clouds was the prequel manuscript to Hillbrow. It followed the trials, misfortunes and ambitions of a group of rural youths from the tiny Northern village of Tiragalong, as they struggle to escape their backgrounds and pursue the dream of education that promises redemption. The characters from Hillbrow are all included in this book but with inceptual details: “Tshepo whose calamitous death sets in motion the train of tragic events that unfolds through the rest of the chapters- and on into the pages of Hillbrow; Refentse the troubled hero-protagonist; Sammy the betrayer; Lerato ‘the Hillbrow woman’; Refilwe, Terror, and others; and of course, Tiragolong itself, a sometimes sinister puppeteer, jerking the umblilical strings from across the distances.” (Mpe, xi) The book was divided into three main parts. ‘Brooding Clouds’, ‘Occasion For Brooding’, and ‘Fountains of Brooding’, are short stories that all make up the first major part of the book. Theses short stories give the readers a strong interpretation of how the villagers were obsessed with the idea of ‘night prowlers’. ‘Brooding Clouds’ starts off with an in-depth analysis of Makgolo. She is one of the oldest women of the village who enjoys telling folktales to all the children. I found this part extremely insightful because it had seemed to me that with every novel that has been read in class, the traditional storytelling was apparent and somewhat idealized for generations up until the tragic death of Tshepo. The day that Tshepo died was the day Ms. Makgolo’s faith had been decided. The comrades considered her to be a practitioner of witch craft. Blaming her for the death of Tiragolongs most promising gentleman this is where Phaswane introduces the reader to the obsession of what they called night prowlers. Many of the villagers sought to ‘cleanse’ their village because of their superstition of witches so they made accusations of witches out of the old and burned them. This part of the novel was very engaging and significant in the fact that it gave us insight as to what seemed to be one of the many themes of the book; witch burning. The way that Phaswane put witch-craft made it seem like his opposition for the plague of witch crafting was very dear to him. Throughout the first three short stories I felt the slight sense of going back and forth as to whether the comrades should be allowed to take matters into their own hands and react on their accusations and eradicate the old. I considered this to be one of the themes because the first chapter opened with accusations of Makgolo and initially ended with her burning screams. The second major part of the book is comprised of two more short stories. ‘Lerato’s Ordeal’ and Refentse’s Ordeal’. These two short stories provide some of the background and detail on the circumstances that lead to a love circle that ended in tragedy. This half of the novel follows the main characters, as they journey out and try to make something better of themselves. Here we see all the situations that too me seems like Phaswane went through himself. First money was an issue. The main character Refentse’s was very smart, he went to a university paying for his schooling through loans. He didn’t come from a wealthy family, so to him getting the loans was a betterment of life compared to the struggle he came from. He tried to make a life for himself in the village of Tiragolong. He loved and lived with a Hillbrow woman Lerato, who was an outsider to his mother and was going to be trouble. These short stories were the climax of the novel. They presented most of the themes that were relevant in Brooding Clouds, Welcome to Our Hillbrow, and most of this other work. All of the stories we have dealt with have had some sort of poverty. Phaswane did not steer shy from telling the readers about the drought that overcame the village and inevitably ended with a death of some sort. Because of the raving poverty that overcame Refentse’s childhood he looked for the outside to make his life seem superior. He did not follow traditions and be with a girl from his homeland. He disregarded what his mother thought of his girlfriend and tried to live with his mother saying he will no longer be her son if he continues to be with this girl. But in the end Refentse’s love Lerato, had an affair with Sammy his rich friend leading to his suicide. I considered this half to portray most of the themes because raving poverty is what lead Refente to dare to live outside the box, and Love and Sexual Betrayal pushed him to his suicide. The fact that he committed suicide was what pulled me into Phaswanes creative writing style. In Africa suicide is not permitted. So the fact that he cleverly put that in was extremely engaging. The last and final story ‘Memories of Brooding’, was the closing to all the events that lead to such a tragic story. Instead of just ending the story with a sad ending Phaswane ended with a welcoming closing note appealing the hope that resides in Tiragalong’s younger generation. He felt that the younger generation would be less vulnerable to the thralls of Tiragalong. Such an engaging story left me feeling like this novel should have been something that we read in class, because the novel was relatively similar to Petals of Blood. Both stories persisted with poverty, love and betrayal, and the themes of xenophobia. The so called hero of both novels ended with a dramatic ending, death for Brooding Clouds, and jail for Petals of Blood. The stories really although their narrative styles were different had a very similar story line. I wouldn’t recommend one over the other, but the symbolism in Brooding Clouds was the actual definition of the term. Brooding clouds is defined as “showing deep unhappiness of thought; appearing darkly menacing” (Wikipedia) and it tied in really well with the book. One particular poem summed up the entire book in twenty-two lines. The title of the poem was “Interlude: Memories Of Brooding.” This one particular poem stood out to me because not only was it my favorite poem in the book, but it also connected me to Phaswane Mpe. What I got from the poem was that even though you are having hard times, and unhappiness is so deeply on your mind, you can “remember those memories of joy that once floated in the calm air almost oblivious to the world around it.” (Mpe, 104) No matter what the circumstances would bring, fond memories would still be there. Words Gone Two Soon is one of the most important classical books in South Africa. It is a tribute to the literary works and life of two of South Africa’s most gifted young writer of the 70’s generation: K. Sello Duiker and Phaswane Mpe . K. Sello Duiker, the dreadlocked 'traveling salesman' was the 2001 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region winner for his novel Thirteen Cents and the 2002 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Literature for The Quiet Violence of Dreams. He was born on April 13, 1974 and was found hanging on 19 January 2005, foul play suspected. One of the people who contributed tributes to Duiker, Homi K. Bhabba noted, "despite my disappointment at your unceremonious death, I respect your decision" The second writer is Phaswane Mpe, who was born on September 10, 1970 in rural Limpopo Province and who was an academic attached to the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand. He was largely known for his book “Brooding Clouds” and Welcome to Our Hillbrow, a novel which dealt with xenophobia and HIV amongst South Africans, and which some say it was sort of autobiographical. Mpe died, after a long illness, closely after his wife. Paying tribute to him Siphiwo Mahala borrowed a line from Mpe's book about a character that died, "He (you) died, poor chap; of what precisely, no one knew" Words Gone Two Soon is a compliments to the two great men of South African literature. They have been afforded an honor many people only dream of. The book consist of poems, short stores, interviews and photographs and is made up of contributions from today's literature heavyweights and prospects. It is edited by Professor Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane and contains contributions from more than 50 writers who all took the time to pay their respect the two literary heroes . While Mzamane was at work trying to tell the story to all who needed to hear about two great South African authors , it was largely 'their' ”peers who were taking the time to honor and to salute them. The list includes Niq Mhlongo (Dog Eat Dog), Gabeba Baderoon (The Dream in the next Body), Keorapetsi Kgotsisile, Kgafela oa Magogodi (Thy Condom Come), Lebogang Mashile (In the Ribbon of the Rythmn), Don Mattera, Abdul Milazi “