Johnny Masilela Literary people are divided as to whether the Congress of South .African Writers (Cosaw) should be revived or not. The organisation was founded in 1987 and brought out a spate of important publications, often by young black writers, in the late Eighties and early Nineties, but faded into insignificance in recent years, amid controversy over the use made of foreign funding. In a letter ahead of Cosaw’s recent annual general meeting, a group of 14 prominent writers, including Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, a former patron of the organisation, rejected the proposal to revive Cosaw. The other writers of the letter are Zakes Mda, Achmat Dangor, Andries Oliphant, Don Mattera, Chris van Wyk, Mandla Langa, Walter Chakela, Es’kia Mphahlele, Menzi Ndaba, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Mothobi Mutloatse, Njabulo Ndebele and Colin Smuts. “After careful consideration of the welfare and status of South African writers and their role in the cultural development of South Africa, it has been realised with regret that any attempt at revival of Cosaw is not in any way in their interests,” the letter said. For a number of years, it continued, donors had seen no action in return for their money, and no adequate accounting of the uses to which it had been put. “Consequently the organisation is virtually blacklisted by the majority of sources of financial support.” Yet the Cosaw AGM went ahead as planned, with Pretoria author Lance Nawa re-elected as president and Thembi Mkhizwana elected as vice-president. Nawa said that the 15 signatories of the letter did not represent the majority of writers. In its post-AGM declaration, Cosaw said it should have been part of the recent conference on racism, saying South Africa’s publishing industry was racist. In the wake of the 15 writers’ objections, Cosaw also committed itself to ask Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Ben Ngubane to appoint a commission to investigate its financial affairs. SA PEN executive chair Brian Bamford said he believed Cosaw should be revived, but herStoriA editor and former Cosaw worker Sandra Braude said a democratic South Africa did not need separate writers’ groups. Van Wyk, one of the letter’s signatories, said there was no point in reviving the organisation:”It is stumbling around like a drunk man,” he said.