Response to a non-existent South African poet

Dear Johann Lodewyk Marais

Your open letter to me refers.[1] Possibly a more appropriate name, or persona, for your non-existent muse would be Rip van Winkle.

Southern African Literatures — not Literature — appeared in 1996. What you have suddenly discovered is the reprint with revised Preface, in which I address intelligent criticisms that greeted the book’s initial publication — briefly: How do we respect our diversity while seeking to go beyond apartheid division? How do we find a common story that does not erase our different stories? I attempted in the conventions of academic debate to respond to the reception of my literary history. You may read the Preface to the republished edition (2003), or you may read my article “The Problem of Identity: South Africa, Storytelling, and Literary History”, which appeared in the reputable journal New Literary History, 29 (1), 1998.

A few points:

•  Southern African Literatures makes clear its methodology and argues consistently within its own premises. It is not a dictionary, or an A-Z: just as many Afrikaans writers are not mentioned, so many English writers are not mentioned. Most of the talents you name — Marais, Leipoldt, Van Wyk Louw, Opperman, Blum, Small, Breytenbach, Stockenström, Krog — do feature in the overall argument.
  
•  The overall argument is that despite language guardedness, the social history of South Africa, indeed southern Africa, has influenced why and how people write. Despite Breytenbach’s or Krog’s brilliant use of the Afrikaans language, they are shaped by several comparative forces: anti-apartheid sentiment, European literature, African literature, the dominance of English — I do not celebrate the last, but it plays a role in translation priorities and markets. Why is your letter to me in English? I do understand Afrikaans.
  
•  When Southern African Literatures first appeared there were “vies” reviews by several Afrikaans critics. I subjected myself to ad hominem attack at a workshop at Unisa by among others Johann van Wyk and Helize van Vuuren. Recently Joan Hambidge, who, like you, seems only now to have discovered the book, frothed at the mouth in Die Burger. But these are not academically convincing counter-arguments. Like your response, they signal the paranoia of identity crisis.
  
•  Shortly before I embarked on the idea and concept of “Southern African Literatures” I had been invited (around 1987) to contribute to an HSRC project that was to be edited by Charles Malan. What was envisaged were ten or so separate literary histories based on the language principle: a volume on Afrikaans literature (80 000 words); a volume on South African English literature (70 000 words); Xhosa and Zulu literature (each 50 000 words), ending up with Venda literature at 5 000 words. In 1987 with the country in a state of emergency! The project was patently absurd.
  
•  If Southern African Literatures has done nothing else, it has challenged us to embark on a comparative understanding of ourselves. If the book still provokes the “vies” reaction, then I take consolation in Charles de Gaulle’s observation that no-one bothers to kick a dead horse. Or: if you wish to sit high in the trees, you’ll feel the wind.

With best wishes for your reconstructed future.

Michael Chapman

Footnote:

[1]See how the debate started: Read Johann Lodewyk Marais’ open letter to Michael Chapman in Seminar Room.

LitNet: 26 March 2004

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