SA’s mother tongue literature in danger

Internationally acclaimed writer and poet Dr Sindiwe Magona has called on South Africans to embrace mother-tongue literature before it disappears.

Speaking at a round table discussion at the annual Puku Story Festival in Grahamstown, the 72-year-old said not reading mother tongue literature was hurting future generations.

“One day we will be very sorry for the harm we are doing to ourselves,” she warned. “We are causing harm and hurt by de-tongueing ourselves.”

Magona, who was born in rural Bulungulu in the Transkei, said it was sad her large body of work was more celebrated overseas than it was in the country of her birth.

She said she was “mortified” when she returned home from exile in 1994 and found out that young people at the University of the Western Cape – where she took a part-time job – had never heard of her or read any of her many books.

“You can imagine my surprise months later when I asked if they knew Nadine Gordimer and they said no. If they do not know her, how can they know me.”

She said it was sad they never knew about the work of one of South Africa’s few Nobel Literary Prize winners.

“Language is very important because through language we express and receive ideas, it is how we communicate. When you lose your language, the very definition and essence of your being is altered.”

According to Magona, children learnt their parents’ language “from a mother’s belly” long before they were even born.

She said children were best equipped from birth to learn in their mother tongue.

“English is a language, it is not knowledge, children should learn in English but not at the cost of their mother tongue.

“I write in English and Xhosa, but I do not fool myself … I am a black Xhosa – that is a given.”

Magona’s works like Mother to Mother, To My Children’s Children and Life Is A Hard But Beautiful Thing have been translated in other languages including Japanese, Italian and Swedish.

She has also written several children’s books including Esona – sona sidlo!, many plays – including the celebrated Vukani on the impact of HIV/Aids – and poetry collections in both English and Xhosa.

Magona called on libraries to have more mother tongue works by black South African writers and urged communities to form reading clubs that could be run by retired teachers to nurture a culture of reading.

Now in its third year, Puku Children’s Literature Foundation director Elinor Sisulu told teachers and language experts at the round table discussion this week that the free Xhosa story festival was facing a bleak future due to a lack of funding.

While hundreds of children were wooed for hours by mother tongue stories that celebrate the works of Magona and other renowned Xhosa writers, there was also serious debate around preserving and encouraging mother tongue works.

Nal’ibali Gauteng provincial coordinator Bongani Godide said even though there were many people writing in mother tongue languages, their stories weren’t getting out and there was a dearth of mother language literature.

The festival continues today in Grahamstown. — davidm@dispatch.co.za