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When word went out that veteran journalist Marianne Thamm would be interviewing Antjie Krog on her most recent book, Begging to Be Black, on the same day that the country celebrated the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s liberation from prison, Kalk Bay Books received some 200 emails accepting! Fully a half an hour before the much-loved author arrived the bookshop was filled to capacity.

Those who braved a long stand in the late summer heat were not disappointed by the frank and funny discussion. True to her inimitable form, Krog engaged the topic of what it means to be living in South Africa with a different dominant hegemony with wry humour, irreverent observation and her insights that range from profoundly compassionate to utterly withering.

Thamm reflected how that historic day had marked the formal beginning of the country’s transformation at every level, political, social and economic, and less obivously, psychic and spiritual. She said, “Transformation, as we know, is an ongoing process, but if your cup is already full, it’s a problematic journey, and almost, a non-existent one.”

She said, “Krog’s work over twenty years prods, provokes and excavates at a deeply personal and metaphorical level what it means to be a South African, in particular a white South African, in this new transforming landscape. Few other people dare to go where Antjie Krog has gone.”

The dialogue launched straight into the vexing nature – “irritating” said Thamm – of the title that many have found disturbing.

Krog said, “It wants us to talk about what we mean when we say ‘black’. It’s a plea to understand to what we should be changing. It’s an assumption that we have to change.” She referred to a conversation with the Dutch writer, Adriaan van Dis: if you could take a pill that would make you black, would you take it?”

“When you start thinking about this,” said Krog, “people are shocked to think that we should become ‘black’. We like and prefer to be white. Like men like and prefer to be male. When I was a child my mother said that if I ran through the rainbow, I’d become a boy. I spent my days trying to run through the rainbow, but none of my brothers ever wanted to be a girl. Why is that? It’s the same with straight people, which of you would take a pill to take a pill to make you gay? Who wants to join the less powerful group?”

Thamm noted that much of the contemporary discussion about identity and belonging is happening amongst Afrikaans speaking South Africans. She referred to Max du Preez’s “being confounded by Antjie’s excessive handwringing about her white skin, her overdeveloped feelings of guilt about apartheid and colonialism, her over-romanticisation of Africa’s black people and her naivety about politics of the region.”

She mentioned that Du Preez had said he was happy with who he is as a white Afrikaner. The question of ‘blackness’ had never occurred to him. “Perhaps,” she said, “Max’s cup is already full?”

Krog responded that it wasn’t only Max, it was all the “old lefty ooms” spouting the tired jargon of women: “you’re crazy, you’re naïve, you’re angry”. For her, English is no longer the language of white English speaking people only. “When I write Eglish, I no longer think I’m in conversation with white English speakers only. English non-fiction is a conversation with the country. It comes to me through English.”

The candour with which people asked questions of Krog implies that perhaps there is an open-heartedness to pursuing the ongoing challenges of connection, transformation and apology. Maybe there are those for whom the cup is not yet full.

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Book details

• Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
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Random House Struik and Kalk Bay Books invite you to a discussion with Antjie Krog on her new book, Begging to be Black.

Begging to Be Black is a book of journeys – moral, historical, philosophical and geographical. These form strands that Krog interweaves and sets in conversation with each other, (more…)

Antjie Krog is sekerlik ‘n besige dame; haar nuutste boek Begging to Be Black is onlangs gepubliseer en sy het ‘n boeiende pleidooi in die naam van poësie gelewer by vanjaar se Versindaba. Kry hier jou dosis van pragtige Afrikaans met Krog se volledige teks.

Ek neem die volle wapenrusting van die gedig op, sodat ek staande kan bly teen die liste van vervlakking en dwaasheid in hierdie dae van weeklagery en onheil.

Ek staan dan vas, my lendene met metrum omgord, met die borswapen van beeldspraak. En as skoene aan my voete die bereidheid van die versreël met sy grenskuiwende enjambement. Behalwe dit alles neem ek die skild van gefokuswees op waarmee ek al die vurige pyle van die te-lui-om-te-dinkers sal kan blus. Ek laat sak die helm van klank oor my kop en neem in my regterhand die swaard van die metafoor.

• Lees die volledige artikel by Versindaba

Boekbesonderhede

• Begging to be Black deur Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

An in-depth look at Krog’s themes and thrusts in Begging to be Black, Zvomuya’s carefully-plotted interview is a must-read:

The book asks whether it is possible to “make a moral decision within an immoral context”. How do you counter the grand national narrative that recognises two sets of morality: one black and another white? “A white life has meaning only for whites, while a black life means nothing for both black and white.” Small wonder a teacher at a black school asks: “My question is what do I teach children who are not scared of death?”

Riven by such conflicting feelings, extending right to the personal, Krog tries to locate a different framework of morality that admits the interconnectedness (Krog’s favourite phrase) of humanity that finds itself in a world in which different sets of values fight for dominance.

These questions take her back to King Moshoeshoe (1787-1868), founder of the Basotho nation. In an interview with the author in Johannesburg, I remark on the strangeness of that choice. King Shaka would have been the conventional option, I hazard.

• Read the complete article in the Mail & Guardian

Book details

• Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Sharon Sorour-Morris, author of Something On My Mind – Kate Jowell: Her battle with Alzheimer’s, has contributed to The Monthlies Blog, a popular writing space on the SA literary scene.

She published “Poem for Kate” there while writing her book. It begins:

Poem for Kate
Shutting
sheltering sky;
Compelling blue
sure with space -
Be brave,
trill!

• Complete poem

Book details

• Something On My Mind – Kate Jowell: Her battle with Alzheimer’s by
  EAN: 9781770200906
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Antjie Krog’s Cape Town Press Club launch for Begging to Be Black – the third volume in a trilogy that began with Country of My Skull – centred on the concepts of right and wrong in South Africa.

Krog asserted that our perceptions of what’s right and what’s wrong remain warped by our country’s warped history – citing the Tony Yengeni corruption case as an example:

“I know that one thinks the only way to save this country is to create a non-tolerance for corruption … But I am concerned that the strong daily emphasis on yet another example of corruption leaves us with only a vocabulary of non-tolerance.”

Krog said when the scandal around Tony Yengeni broke, a part of her wanted him to be contextualised in a space which also understood his past – not only as an activist but also the specific hurt and damage he experienced at the hands of his torturer.

“What are the consequences in one’s psyche when one’s lived through that?

“I am not saying he should be regarded as not guilty. But shouldn’t he be treated with an understanding of the complicated and complexness and the f****d-upness of oneself inside?”

• Read the complete article at IOL News

Book details

• Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

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:

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Book details

• Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

You are invited to join Random House Struik and Antjie Krog for the launch of her new book Begging to Be Black. Mannini Mokhothu will be the guest speaker.

Mixing memoir and history, philosophy and poetry, the book is stylistically experimental and personally courageous. Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog’s own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction.

We look forward to welcoming you at the launch. The Book Lounge will be there with plenty of copies on hand!

Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, 10 November 2009
• Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
• Venue: The Castle Hotel, Cnr Canterbury and Constitution Streets
  (next to Charly’s Bakery)
  Zonnebloem, Cape Town | Map
• Guest Speaker: Mannini Mokhothu
• RSVP: Lyn Riesnik, Random House Struik, lynr@randomstruik.co.za, 011 484 3538

Book Details

• Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Random House Struik announces the publication, this November, of Antjie Krog’s Begging to Be Black, the third part of a trilogy that the author (unknowingly) began with Country of My Skull and continued with A Change of Tongue.

Mixing memoir and history, philosophy and poetry, the book is stylistically experimental and personally courageous. Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog’s own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction.

In 1992, a gang leader was shot dead by a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe in Kroonstad. The murder weapon was then hidden on Antjie Krog’s stoep. In Begging to Be Black, Krog begins by exploring her position in this controversial case.

From there the book ranges widely in scope, both in time – reaching back to the days of Basotho king Moshoeshoe – and in space – as we follow Krog’s experiences as a research fellow in Berlin, far from the Africa that produced her.

Available from all good bookstores from November 2009.
(more…)

Everyone’s favourite literary journal, Wordsetc, recently released it’s Third Issue: Women & Words. Amongst other things, the latest issue contains an article featuring six South African women who have contributed to the development of the local publishing industry.

Amongst them is Michelle Matthews, former publishing director of Oshun, an imprint of Struik that focuses on women’s writing and literature. It is fitting that this issue of Wordsetc contains an article by Matthews on Oshun and women writers, in particular, black women writers.
(more…)