In his opening address to the 200 guests gathered at the historic Castle Hotel in Cape Town, Random House Struik’s Stephen Johnson celebrated the arrival of Begging to be Black, the third book of autobiographical writings by the acclaimed South African writer, Antjie Krog.
“No fewer than twelve works, written by Antjie Krog,” he said, “had appeared in Afrikaans before her ground-breaking book, Country of My Skull, was published. Most were collections of her gloriously powerful captivating poetry, and many of them had won major literary prizes. The one exception, An Account of a Murder, passed largely unmarked at the time, but told an extraordinary story, an extraordinary part of the author’s history: a tale of strange events and all-too-human characters. It explored even stranger frightening machinations of power. That tale forms a skein that runs through her latest book, Begging to be Black.”
Video: Stephen Johnson details Random House Struik’s publishing relationship with Antjie Krog
“In 2003, nine years after the first democratic election,” Johnson continued, “we published A Change of Tongue. Described in one academic paper as ‘a journey into the deep structure of psychic conscription, exploring the conditions under which identity may transform so that to be an Afrikaner is also to be an Afrikaner: a person who is not only in Africa as a displaced European, but also of Africa’.”
“Begging to be Black creates and concludes what neither we, as publishers, nor Antjie planned initially, a trilogy. These three works, Country of my Skull, A Change of Tongue and Begging to be Black, by a writer of profoundly powerful gifts and insights, stand as a strongly connected whole, the work of such scope and power and influence that I’m entirely confident that all three of them will still be in print decades from tonight.”
The publisher at Zebra Press, Marlene Fryer, presented the author with a special gift, a three-volume special edition of the trilogy, and thanked her for her commitment to the publication.
Krog, taking the microphone, noted that there are two added cultures in Begging to be Black, and she asked Karin Schimke and Mannini Mokhothu to join her on the stage; they then read poetry together, in English, German and seSotho:
Videos: Antjie Krog, Karin Schimke and Mannini Mokthothu read together
Krog acknowledged Robert Plummer, the managing editor of Zebra Press, for his care and attention to the book. She thanked him profusely, saying that a story should be written about what editors endured!
She then read from her book – two letters to her mother:
Gallery
Book details
Please register or log in to comment
