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James Purdy's assertion that "[m]ost books come into the world with the fanfare of a stillborn" (cited in Betsy Lerner) may sound callous and outrageous to those not familiar with the dynamics of the book trade worldwide. For new, and largely young, prospective or newly-started writers, it may even appear that Purdy goes to unnecessary lengths to keep them as far away from writing, or honing further their writing skills, as possible. For, as Michael Legat observes, we often read with envy about famous writers who have won prestigious literary prizes, or whose advances go into six figures, or whose literary agents have managed to licence, at untold fees, subsidiary rights like film and translations rights, that we tend to think of writers as glamorous and wealthy members of society, and of writing as a fairly easy route to riches and fame. Yet when we take a couple of lessons from Legat's book, it becomes clear why we as readers tend to have a generally skewed view of writing and the book trade. Put differently, Legat clarifies why, looked at from different angles, Purdy has a point, and one that is worth pondering. For even in the context of developed worlds such as the USA and the UK, which is what Legat focuses on, where the culture of reading and book-buying is well established and quite healthy, many books do indeed come into these worlds with the fanfare of a stillborn.
There are, of course, reasons for this dispiriting and potentially discouraging state of affairs. One main reason is that there are simply too many newly published titles per year. Even in the late 1990s, the UK alone contributed over 100 000 new titles per annum. Although I do not have a figure for the USA, I am aware that it is much greater than the UK figure. Given that there are only so many print media - and I am referring specifically to newspapers and magazines - in any given country, I presume that we may agree that these media cannot cope with this output. As if that is not enough, complicate the scene by acknowledging that in any country these media have a further responsibility of alerting their readers to, and encouraging them to buy and read, new titles from other countries.
Take this broad picture painted above and add the question of individual authors' reputations and what they mean for the way in which literature, in particular, is promoted and publicised. The point here is that a famous writer who has won a prestigious literary award such as the Nobel Prize for Literature, like the South African JM Coetzee, will necessarily become more newsworthy in book circles than, say, young writers with only one or two, but mostly no prizes, whether major or minor, to show for their labour. These famous writers take up whatever available space there is, which, as many observers, including Stephen Gray, have noted, has become increasingly squeezed out of the media by other items.
The South African publishing industry, of course, does not produce as many new titles a year as do the USA's and the UK's. But then, the media sector here is no bigger than the USA's and the UK's either. The challenges, purely in terms of book promotion and publicity seem to me to be similar - if one momentarily puts aside issues relating to the politics, culture and economics of book publishing, low levels of literacy and the resultant weak culture of book buying. The print media have traditionally been engaged in publicising new titles, or new editions of old titles, through book reviews. Even if we all agree that, in South Africa, less and less space has, during the ten or so years of democracy, been allocated to books, we still have to acknowledge that book reviewing still takes place, and those media that still engage in this practice must be applauded for their efforts. For unless the tradition is continued, even more new titles in the country will come into our world with the fanfare of a stillborn.
Yet there are a couple of observations - perhaps neither new nor remarkable insights, I hasten to add - worth making.
Stephen Gray laments the demise of the Southern African Review of Books, "the vehicle that I … needed in order to make my chipper stocktaking". He further points out that with the channel has gone the art of reviewing. What is regrettable, mainly, is that we are now impoverished if, together with Cyril Connolly, we agree that reviewing "had always served to signal a healthy culture of critique and assessment" (cited in Gray). For those looking for a model of what Stephen Gray is talking about, those who have not had a chance to read the Southern African Review of Books, one option might be to search South African library archives. Alternatively, you might like to have a look at what the New York Review of Books does, which is similar. In the New York Review of Books you find lengthy articles on important publications and authors. Such articles often do not just evaluate the quality of the publication or the significance of the writer. They go well beyond this; they also examine the significance of the publication in relation to the author's other works and/or those of his contemporaries. If the reviewer examines literary movements, or political ideologies, or certain themes, or any other broad topic, then the individual author's or book's contribution to new developments in that regard is considered.
An excellent recent example that comes to mind is JM Coetzee's review of the German novelist Günter Grass's Crabwalk. Here Coetzee, in a cool voice that is incisive but hardly judgmental, considers the contribution that Grass makes to the literature of the Second World War, and more specifically to the implications of Grass's endeavours for German literature, which has tended to be rather silent on sensitive issues relating to Nazi camps. The discussion of Crabwalk as a work of art, and how the life of its main character resembles Günter Grass's, is enlightening, reflecting as it does, without being pretentious, on the relationship between fiction and life history, while Coetzee stretches his mind to reflect on German literature generally. Indeed, referring to earlier Grass novels, Coetzee also gives us a glimpse into Grass's contribution to magic realism in German literature.
Now the above is the kind of book reviewing the loss of which Gray - and I am on his side - laments. In South Africa we no longer have an outlet that can indulge us to that extent.
Nevertheless, some media are still concerned about books. I will mention only a few, the ones that I read regularly: Mail & Guardian, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent and ThisDay. However, as talking with some of the people involved in making space for the book review pages in the papers mentioned here will attest, it is not an easy task keeping this space. There are endless negotiations and some arm-twisting that go into this.
The same, as Alan Swerdlow has pointed out, occurs in radio. He has, on occasions, talked about the difficulties of keeping his programme, Book Shelf, on air. Perhaps this also explains why most African-language radio stations, like Thobela FM, which broadcast in Sepedi, no longer have book programmes. Nobody may have been sufficiently passionate and staunch to ensure that books remain on air.
Now, where book reviews still do exist, what do they offer? This is a crucial question, which will lead to my second consideration, namely, the question of what they do not offer.
Generally, the available space for books in newspapers and magazines is currently so small that it is difficult for them to offer much. Typically, only one page is allocated to books in newspapers and magazines. What can the books editor or those writing on books offer if this is the case? Conscious of the need to publicise and promote as many titles as possible, books editors tend to allow for reviews of two, three or even four books per page. Needless to say, there is very little space for the consideration of the book in relation to other books on the same subject, or in relation to other books in the field, or in relation to the author's own oeuvre. Similarly, in this new South Africa, one gets to read very little about the state of the new literature, the literature of transition. And, indeed, even our sense of the new title under review might not be as sharp as it could be, that is, adequate to help us decide whether to buy the book or not. I will return to these issues a bit later.
Some newspapers and magazines, like the Sunday Times, try to overcome the challenge by offering book reviews on one hand, and authors on books on the other. Authors on books is a recent venture that I find worthwhile. But again, how much can the individual authors write on their favourite books, or indeed on those they do not like, in 250 words? ThisDay, too, has space specifically reserved for writers, although in this space they are not restricted to books. Authors can choose themes, incidents or events that they find relevant to their and society's day-to-day life and write commentary, or take on a topical or familiar subject or concern and offer their own interpretations of or commentaries on it.
Once in a while all the newspapers offer feature articles or author profiles. (I have become wary of author profiles; they often offer one nothing to get one's teeth into regarding the writer's contribution to artistry or ideas.) Features and profiles depend on many things. One, there may be a famous author with a new book in the market, or forthcoming. Two, a writer may have won a significant literary award. Or, as in the case of the Sunday Times, it may be the time to promote the shortlist of the contestants for the Sunday Times Literary Awards. Alternatively, a new title, by a known or unknown, old or young writer, may appear to be quite controversial and therefore newsworthy. There are numerous reasons for having features and profiles. However, comparatively speaking, book reviews dominate the books pages of our print media. A quick look at the Mail & Guardian Online archive menu gives you an idea. The following refers to the menu for 2004, up to Monday 20 September: "New Reads": three items; "Authors' Notes": nine items; "Reviews": 25 items; "Features": nine items. (I must also point out that these features are, in fact, mostly reviews.)
Given that, as I have indicated - to digress for a moment and return to what I said I would revisit - book reviews in our print media are not able to provide us with a spectrum of issues for due consideration, owing to constraints of space1 - unlike Stephen Gray, I actually believe that there are still able reviewers in South Africa. Given this state of affairs, I would like to propose that we pay closer attention to features and what they could offer. And I say this in view of the fact that features tend to be allocated bigger spaces than individual book reviews. I suggest that features that serve exactly the same purpose as book reviews might be a rather unprofitable use of space and time; they may prove to be missed opportunities.
For example, looking at the Mail & Guardian's feature, "Writing about the Unavoidable", which is a review of Dumisani Sibiya's isiZulu short stories, two feelings surged from within me. One was a feeling of relief and great pleasure at the fact that an African-language publication, by a young writer, is receiving the attention that it deserves, and in a reputable newspaper. Two, I also felt that there was an opportunity being missed. While as a review this feature works, I nevertheless got curious to know how Sibiya's contribution to isiZulu literature compares with recent output by other writers, especially the young ones, using the same medium. The reviewer could have given us a glimpse into this, or at least asked Sibiya to reflect on the issue. This would have required more space, but in this instance I could not help feeling that the books editor could have made an exception and provided the necessary space. Indeed, having this review published was a rare event in itself, and its rarity could have encouraged the editor to be more generous.
I had looked at the review of Sibiya in relation to what Shaun de Waal has done recently on the controversy between Robert Suresh and Nadine Gordimer regarding an authorised biography of Gordimer that Suresh was writing. As this is fresh in our minds, and for reasons of space, I will not go into the controversy in any detail. Suffice to say that Gordimer felt that Suresh got some facts wrong and therefore would not authorise the biography, while Suresh feels that Gordimer's decision amounts to interference and censorship. De Waal's reading of the controversy is fascinating, an excellent piece of work. In addition to exploring the two positions, he brilliantly looks beyond them to explore questions of authorship and authority, and the relationship between them. In other words, De Waal gives us a much wider view of what the controversy is about: it is not simply about two players who, it seems, are also referees, but also about literature, representations of life histories, publishing and power relations. Although he does not give us examples of other writers and biographers who have had similar experiences in this regard, one is nonetheless left with a clear understanding of what is at stake for the individual players and for those who might in future find themselves writing biographies or signing contractual agreements in terms of which they would be expected to authorise their biographies.
De Waal's article is a good example of what I think features need to do.
Firstly, features - even when they are focussed on only one writer or his/her work(s) - should reflect broader issues than would be relevant in the context of the discussion.
Secondly, I propose that we consider doing features on themes, topics and genres (like De Waal has done), or historical periods, or literary movements, or languages, or race2 and so on. For example, De Waal himself, I think in 1999 or 2000, lamented the failure of the emergence of new young black writers. How about a feature in which he looks back and reflects on whether this is still troubling him to the extent that it did then? What progress, if any, has he observed in this regard? What about writing by other young writers generally? Or someone - not just Shaun de Waal - could reflect on successes and/or failures in terms of new ideas having come out, or how old ideas have been re-examined, or what new literary styles have been in evidence, or, again, how familiar styles have been used in the service of new literary output in the past ten years. Or, when someone reports on literary prizes, he/she could go much further by informing us not just of whose works have won which prizes, but also how the individual works compare with previous winners of the respective prizes.
These are just a few examples of how one might think about features. By thinking more broadly, where features are concerned, books editors and those who write for them could give South African readers a more enriched sense of what is available in the country in terms of new titles, artistic developments, intellectual growth and so on. And in this way young writers, I hope, would benefit more from gaining publicity from this broad outlook. While many books will still come into the world with the fanfare of a stillborn, I believe that more writers would benefit from this or a similar approach.
1. I do not, in this paper, make a case for more
space for books in our print media because this is obviously necessary.
Equally important would be a special publication devoted to writing
and books, in the vein of the Southern African Review of Books,
and the book trade, like the Bookseller in the UK.
2. I am of the opinion that it is too early to
avoid the question of race when we talk about the state of writing
in South Africa. |
Phaswane Mpe, 34, is a Doctoral Fellow at the Wits
Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). He holds an MA
in African Literature (1996) from the University of the Witwatersrand,
and a Diploma in Advanced Study in Publishing (1997) from Oxford Brookes
University, Oxford. Mpe has had stories, poems and academic articles
published in books and journals locally and internationally. His debut
novel, Welcome to Our Hillbrow (2001), was short-listed for
the Sunday Times Fiction Award 2002 and the Sanlam Literary
Award for Fiction 2001. He lives in Johannesburg.
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