/ 9 August 2008

Beating the odds

This week poets and activists Makhosazana Xaba, Donna Smith and Ntsiki Mazwai will be in conversation with academic and writer Pumla Gqola at Xarra Books as part of the city of Jo’burg’s celebration of women in the arts.

The Mail & Guardian sought out Xaba, a writer, poet, health worker and former MK war veteran who is writing a biography about little-known writer and journalist Noni Jabavu. A google search of Jabavu brings up just less than 3 000 results; a similar search of novelist and academic Es’kia Mphahlele elicits more than 20 000 hits. Yet the two were contemporaries. While the latter is feted as part of South Africa and the continent’s literary canon, the former is virtually unknown beyond literary circles, where she is also not well-known. Her death in her late 80s in June this year was little reported and was a small footnote in the news: her death was as obscure as her life and works. This celebration in the Newtown area is meant to bring women such as Jabavu to the world’s attention.

I understand Xaba’s point when she argues that ”men’s visibility has nothing to do with their quality but with the frequency with which we reference them”. Jabavu published Drawn in Colour, her first book, in 1960. It was enthusiastically received in London and New York, two of the publishing capitals of the world, where it was reprinted six times that year and was followed by The Ochre People a few years later.

Xaba has encountered prejudice and chauvinism herself. She says when her second collection of poetry, Tongues of Their Mothers, came out some people sneered ”so you really are a writer. That MA in creative writing really helped.” When she shot back that her first poetry collection, These Hands, came out long before she did her MA, they still shook their heads in disbelief. ”These are exciting times for women,” she says, adding that the first draft of her biography of Jabavu should be ready by next year. Critics have praised her poetry for its insight and the tender way she has tackled women’s issues in her work.

Xaba will be in cross-generational conversation with Mazwai, spoken word poet, musician, actor and beadwork designer. Recently the face of Beadex, the bead and jewellery expo, she has lived a long time in the shadow of her elder sister, pop diva Thandiswa Mazwai. She was part of a poetry collective, Feela Sistah Spoken Word, which she has since left to release MaMiya, which was well received and nominated for a South African Music Award last year.

Last year she posed in the nude for Marie Claire magazine in a campaign to raise awareness about rape. ”I would do it again,” she says, ”the cause is important.” She insists the intention was not to glorify the nude female body. ”It was a shock tactic. I didn’t want to do a beautiful portrait. I wanted it raw.”

She says it was meant to show the female body in a vulnerable state and the initiative was worthwhile. ”We talk about rape more — and I will always be the girl who stood up against rape,” she says.

Finding her way and making a mark in this male-dominated field was not easy. ”When the sisters get to the top they take away the staircase.” I point out to her that being a daughter of businessman and journalist Thami Mazwai and a sibling to Thandiswa surely opened doors. ”No,” she says, ”the attitude was, oh no, not another Mazwai.” This has had its benefits because as a result ”I work very hard”.

She is optimistic nonetheless about the hip-hop generation that is eclipsing the kwaito generation. ”I am part of the youth: the future.” When I ask her how different it is from the kwaito generation they are working to replace, she pauses, and says matter-of-factly, ”we wear brightly coloured clothes, we are young and we have more content”.

Poets Donna Smith, Makhosazana Xaba and Ntsiki Mazwai will be in ­conversation this Friday evening at Xarra Books, Newtown, from 6pm till late