/ 21 February 2008

Keeping indigenous heritage alive through grants

The publishing world may never be able to pay back the debt some authors owe to grants and fellowships as grants sometimes come to struggling and unknown new writers trying to make a mark in the world.

A grant from the Norwegians to the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa (Anfasa) recently resulted in a biography, a Sotho dictionary and a book of indigenous recipes which will be released in the next two years.

Anfasa received a R210 000 grant from the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association, Kopinor — the Norwegian Reproduction Rights Organisation — and the Norwegian Foreign Affairs ministry for this project, which intends to benefit South African authors of academic, educational and general non-fiction works.

Thelmah Maluleke, head of the department of public health at the University of Venda, will write a recipe book on the cuisine of the Tsonga people and hopes her book will be out next year. ‘I want it to be a huge recipe book,” she says. ‘Modern children don’t want to eat indigenous food anymore. Hopefully if they find a recipe book of these foods in a bookshop, they will think the food worthwhile,” she says.

Her aim is to promote the nutritional value of local foods and recipes, which she hopes will promote healthy eating habits and improve the nutritional status of South Africans. The aim of the book is to preserve indigenous recipes for generations to come.

This year’s recipients are a motley crew of established writers, such as Lewis Nkosi, and debutants such as Thozama Kwinana-Mandindi. Other recipients include Hanri de la Harpe, a lecturer at the University of North West who is turning her doctoral study in graphic-design education into a book. Among other noteworthy projects is a biography of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel by Philippa Green and a Sotho dictionary by Nogwaja Zulu who hopes to finish by 2009.

Kwinana-Mandindi’s book reflects her research interests in food safety and public health. Currently doing a PhD with Fort Hare, she lectures at Walter Sisulu University of Technology. She has been looking at the safety of indigenous food plants of the Amahlathi district of the Eastern Cape and has completed research towards a book on the nutritional value of Xhosa traditional foods.

She argues that ‘rural people are increasingly abandoning foods for refined foods”. She says that ‘now that I have funding, I will definitely publish. I want to inform the curriculum about our indigenous foods”. She hopes to create so much interest in the food that people will buy it.

Kundayi Masanzu, a director at Anfasa, says next year’s applications will open in June this year and all academic and non-fiction authors who are members of Anfasa — and who write in any of the official languages — can apply for funding.