She is South Africa’s Ms Reading. Since I met her 10 years ago, Beulah Thumbadoo has cherished the ambition of getting more people to read more.
As a journalist, it is a passion I share in a nation where people seem to want to read less.
While I have chosen the comfort zone of the Mail & Guardian, the readers of which want to read, Thumbadoo has struck out to encourage a mass-based reading culture and to find, in many nooks and crannies, the readers and writers out there.
She persuaded the former education minister, Kader Asmal, to start a national reading campaign called Masifunde Sonke, but it has only stuttered along.
That national reading campaign of grand scale will happen when the political will is found, but until then, Thumbadoo is now nourishing another dream: to publish a million books and to distribute them free to people who do not frequent suburban malls.
”I’ve always advocated taking the reading matter to where the people are and, while I support the profit pillar on which publishing is built, I still believe there are people in our country who must be seduced into the pleasure and benefits of reading,” she says.
For two years now, I have helped judge the annual short-story competition run by Beulah Thumbadoo and Associates, with generous sponsorship from Anglo-Platinum. It is part of her basket of projects to realise a life’s work.
The stories flow in. From prisons, factories, farms, from kitchens and from retirement nooks and crannies. From black, white, young and old people. And, clearly, the aspirant writers are people who read.
Their stories are peppered with the issues and tissues of life in contemporary South Africa. In the finalist batch of 10 that the judges read, HIV and Aids figure largely, as does crime, cross-racial love and aspiration. The characters are often full-blown and larger than life. Their dilemmas are ours; so are their aspirations.
Thumbadoo says this has been a hallmark of a competition that has attracted 10 000 entrants since its inception 11 years ago. This year, more than 2 600 people set pen to paper, no doubt attracted by a whopping R60 000 in prize money.
Often the plots are so complex that the writers must race to a conclusion in the 5 000 words that the competition sets as the limit. Resolutions are too perfect. In time, as the writers grow, the nuance of irresolution will come. As will character sketching and simpler plots.
For now, the short-story competition is becoming a date of promise on the literary calendar. This year’s winner, announced on September 8, is particularly compelling: Arno Smith wrote the story Ripples from his cell at Mangaung prison in Bloemfontein where he is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction.
Creative writing is quickly winning its place as a means of counselling and reform in South African prisons.
Smith’s is a rollicking tale of several inter-woven stories: they encompass the themes of love, Aids, crime and violence, but are told in a way that propels and compels.
For two years now, I’ve also enjoyed the stories of Rebone Samantha Makgato who writes grisly crime stories, which took me to the edge of my seat. He has been a finalist for both years.
Ferial Haffajee judged the competition with Greg Maloka, the GM of Yfm; Alison Lowry, CEO of Penguin Publishers; Terence Tryon of Anglo-Platinum; and Zane Meas, the actor. The book of winning stories is available from Beulah Thumbadoo and Associates, Tel: (011) 648 8170