RIP Lewis Nkosi, 1936 – 2010
BOOK SA received the news this morning that Lewis Nkosi, the giant of South African letters and one of the last remaining voices from South Africa’s famed Drum generation of writers, passed away yesterday in Johannesburg, after a long illness. He was born in December 1936 in KwaZulu Natal, making him 74.
Nkosi’s first novel, which won worldwide acclaim, was Mating Birds. It was banned by the apartheid government; Nkosi lived for long periods in exile, particularly in Switzerland. His last novel was Mandela’s Ego. It was shortlised for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.
Siphiwo Mahala of the DAC and Raks Seakhoa of wRite Associates conveyed the news to BOOK SA. Nkosi’s twin daughters, Louise and Joy, and his wife, Astrid Starck, were at his side in his last hours.
BOOK SA spoke to his publisher, Annari van der Merwe, who said:
“If I think about Lewis, two things come to mind: the brilliance of the man’s mind, and his sense of irony – of self-irony. And of course he was quite naughty, but endearingly so. For all his bravado, he was sensitive in a way that few men truly are. There was a real empathy with people – and he had a very broad perspective, from having lived in a different cultural environment for so many years. The devil inside him prevented him from taking things too literally. It’s difficult to think of somebody so vibrant not with us any longer. He will be greatly missed.”
BOOK SA extends deepest condolences to Nkosi’s family and friends. He was an irrepressible character who brought joy to our world.
We’ll post more information here as it comes in.
Lewis Nkosi at KZN Literary Tourism
__________________________
Podcast with a Giant,
Lewis Nkosi
It is one of the rarest but most real pleasures of our time to cast aside the daily rush and instead engage in slow, deep conversation with those amongst us who are wise beyond the saying.
Recently, I sat down to chat to Lewis Nkosi about his writing and his views on truth, narrative and many of the issues that have engaged his searching mind over a long and distinguished literary career. As we spoke at his favourite guest house in Melville, Johannesburg, it occurred to me that my reflections on his novel,Mandela’s Ego, when it first came out, still represent my thoughts on how important this work of fiction is amongst the most recent additions to our literary pantheon.
Who of us in our youth has not felt the powerful, almost irresistible urge to model our life on a larger-than-life icon? In the imagination of an impressionable admirer, the personal qualities and strengths of the icon are often blown out of all proportion because of the blending of myth and reality. This is one of the most fascinating phenomena of our own time, because of the ubiquitous “always on” digital media that now reaches virtually every frontier. Images of our most popular icons find their way into even our most private moments, only amplifying the influence that such icons wield on us.
But ours is not the only age of the hero-worshipper. In the year when he turned 70, Lewis Nkosi, one of the giants of South African letters, gave us a novel that boldly charted new creative territory, set initially in the 1950s. Mandela’s Egopresents us with the young Dumisa Gumede, a precocious, if somewhat exhibitionist student at Mondi Missionary School in the Drakensberg, who develops an obsessive worship of Nelson Mandela. The novel shows how a writer at the peak of his powers can use fiction to bring a new energy and understanding to historical events, and still tell a compelling story.
In a significant break with our literary tradition, most of this book takes place in the rural areas: the forays into towns such as Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town are incidental. It is thus in a seemingly idyllic rural setting that the seeds of Dumisa’s despair are sown, because he oversteps the mark in his role as the local lover’s lover (isoka).
In a culture that heaps endless praise on young men that can conquer the hearts of maidens, the rampant Dumisa relishes the prospect of each conquest as if it were his very first. But his magic formula for conquest fails to weave its spell on Nobuhle, the Beautiful One, and she takes obvious delight in spurning his increasingly desperate advances.
When I spoke to Nkosi he made it clear that one of the obvious problems of idolizing amasoka is the result for society: so many young girls fell pregnant during the 50s and 60s, he said. Nkosi added that whilst he credits his own education to missionary teachers, he still believes that by making sex a taboo subject, the missionaries lost an opportunity to positively influence the young students at a time when they were experiencing great sexual turmoil in their lives.
In a prescient passage in the novel, Dumisa dismisses with alarm any suggestion that his days as a roving lover could ever end. “The idea of taking away his sexual powers, even as a joke, was more than he could stand. Had he not recently made one Noliwe, who had boasted of being protected from temptation by the Holy Spirit whimper and shriek all night, as he rode through her heavenly gates?” He imagines himself to be a potent black bull, just like Nelson Mandela, on the run from the Apartheid police at the time, and idolized by many young men like Dumisa.
But the capture and arrest of his hero cuts his sexual powers and for 27 years Dumisa’s super sized sexual drive stays on empty, and he is unable to summon his former youthful vigour, much less have sex.
Mandela’s Ego is a novel that should delight all those that still love to encounter characters that are fully realized, warts and all. Readers will be able to see how Mandela’s emergence as a brave lawyer and political leader during the turbulent late 50s and early 60s marked him as a role model in the fight against oppression. In a society that had so few national heroes, the tall tales about Mandela – which even found their way into the ranks of the police and struck fear and doubt amongst them – gave the young Dumisa no chance for reflection.
What I love most about this novel is that it weaves humour, satire and even comedy to give us a tale that is certainly strange, but quite unforgettable. Under Nkosi’s creative genius this narrative cuts like a sharp knife through the cult of hero worship and shows how blind idolatry of any one person can have unintended, even bizarre consequences. Read this novel to see how history can provide the stage on which a great writer can use his story-telling powers to give us fresh perspectives on ancient customs and even prompt us to review our understanding of our society.
Mandela’s Ego is one of three novels that have been penned by Lewis Nkosi, regarded by many discerning observers as one of Africa’s leading essayists, critics and writers. A member of a group of writers simply known as the “Drum generation”, 9781868144358writers, Lewis left South Africa on a one-way exit permit to take up a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. During his period in London, he has contributed to leading literary journals around the world. Lewis has been a Professor of Literature at the University of Wyoming, University of California-Irvine, as well as at Universities in Zambia and Poland.
Mating Birds, his first novel, has been hailed as a seminal contribution to South African fiction, dealing as it does with the ever-engaging topics of sex, race and questions about the reliability of narrative. It was followed by Underground People, which follows a band of freedom fighters working inside the SA border as the Apartheid system was beginning to collapse. The First comprehensive study of his life and work,Still Beating the Drum: Critical Perspectives on Lewis Nkosi, was published in 2005.
>via: http://victordlamini.bookslive.co.za/blog/2008/03/31/podcast-with-a-giant-lew...