Re: elderly white query
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Mon, 08 Jun 1998 18:16:08 +1000
That's a very good question ... how about Andre Brink? A sad testament to
the nature of literature and its marketing that the only person I could
think of was a white person. I'm the first to admit my wide reading could
be wider ... I think perhaps the greatest shame is that no names do spring
to mind, as there is nothing more tragic than a section of society which
has no voice. I met a lot of South African playwrights at a writer's
congress last year and was utterly amazed that they basically had to sneak
out of Africa to get there. Their government has dossiers on them and see
them as political threats - it's so easy to forget the level of censorship
still being experienced in parts of the world in these enlightened times.
This, combined with the attitudes to `black' writing demonstrated by the
media and publishers, combined with the fact that 98% of Africa's wealth is
owned by 2% of its populace, as well as the fact that I tend only to skim
the very top of contemporary literature, adds up to the sad answer ... I
really don't know. I suppose, as Jim says, the saddest thing is that we
don't bother to ask. Not even the African nation especially, but even
people like Robert Hayden and Langston Hughes ... where was the Harlem
Renaissance in there??
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
----------
> From: Scottie Bowman <bowman@mail.indigo.ie>
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: elderly white query
> Date: Saturday, 6 June 1998 23:35
>
>
> Incidentally, Camille, who from the 'African Nation'
> *would* you commend as exerting great literary influence
> in the past century ?
>
> Scottie B.