Mervyn Sloman, proprietor of The Book Lounge – which hosted the launch of Andrew Brown’s new novel, Refuge, at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town yesterday – opened his remarks by citing the sales figures of another Brown. Dan Brown, that is, whose The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol have collectively sold into the gazillions.
That may be impressive, said Sloman, but tonight we are gathered at an altogether more significant event, the international launch of a new work by Andrew Brown. A pause. Then, to much cheering from the Centre’s packed main hall, “The better Brown”. Sloman announced the start of the The Better Brown Campaign, an educational initiative targeting booksellers – but more on that later.
Brown’s book incorporates a meditation on the plight of refugees in South Africa, who have never exactly been warmly welcomed here, and who suffered great losses during the spate of xenophobic attacks in 2008 – violence and intimidation that have continued to this day. The author accordingly desired that his launch be not just about a single book, but that it should feature a tapestry of voices, the voices of those who speak out against nationalist bigotry and violence against those who are different.
Enter MaAfrika Tikkun and the organisation’s Lizeka Rantsane, who introduced a dozen young women from the NGO, there to perform “Hold Me Tight, Fear Not My Skin”, a powerful, choreographed depiction of xenophobic violence and a call to action to promote greater understanding and the peaceful working out of differences. Here’s a clip from the opening scene:
Video: “My name is…” scene from “Hold Me Tight, Fear Not My Skin”
Another voice at the launch that attracted that admiration of the audience was Dale Yudelman’s, which spoke silently through his photographs, arranged around the room. The diptychs – snaps of personal ads placed in public spaces like supermarkets by non-South Africans looking for work, paired with haunting, black and white imagery – comprised part of Yudelman’s “I Am” exhibition and reinforced the evening’s central message about our collective humanity.
Every event must have a main act, however, and this came with Brown’s turn at the podium. He first read from Refuge – a passage in which the main character says to his (hired) Nigerian lover that what he lacks, in his life, is curiosity (the acoustics of the hall weren’t great, but give this clip a listen):
Video: Andrew Brown reads from Refuge
Brown segued from that passage into a story about how, twenty-five years ago, he stood on a hilltop in Tanzania, an exile who had fled apartheid South Africa after being released from Pollsmoor prison, and contemplated his country’s future. He was not particularly sanguine then – but things turned out differently from his expectations.
Brown continued: he’d recently returned to Tanzania on a motorcycle trip – but found that he wasn’t able to unfurl the South African flag that he’d taken with him, because he was too ashamed by our xenophobic episodes to put it proudly on display.
What can be done to thwart the expectations of so many Africans that last year’s violence has set? he asked. “We have to find our voice again, because terrible things happen when people stay silent.”
We’ve gone back into our shells, he continued: this week, for instance, “community eviction notices” were served on Burundians living in Du Noon. “Refuge is my small voice of outrage. We must use our fear,” he said – fear being a cognate, almost, for curiosity, its dark cousin in our quiver of emotions – “and use it to regain what we have lost” as a rainbow nation.
Brown thanked the Nigerians who had let him into their world when he was writing Refuge, and singled out his editor, Martha Evans, for especial praise, saying her name deserved to be on the book’s cover as much as his.
Back to Mervyn Sloman. To conclude the formalities, he outlined the main points of The Better Brown Campain. There are only four, and they’re quite simple:
Simple, not so? And a great way to reinforce the fact that, in Andrew Brown, South Africa has a writer who can take the nation on to the world stage.
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October 23rd, 2009 @11:11 #
I'm so sorry I missed this, it looks like a grand show. Good for Andrew for putting his art where his heart is. Yay also for Mervyn, and what sounds like a splendid campaign.