S7E8: Noni Jabavu - Hiding in Plain Sight

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The Empty Chair by PEN SA

PEN South Africa

63 episodes

4 days ago

In The Empty Chair Podcast: A Transatlantic Conversation, PEN South Africa hosts authors, academics and activists based in South Africa and the USA. The podcast focuses on books, writing, social justice, freedom of expression, shared histories and possible futures. Each of our episodes is dedicated to an imprisoned writer or a writer who has been harassed by the state.

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S7E8: Noni Jabavu - Hiding in Plain Sight

The Empty Chair by PEN SA

1 hour 20 minutes 49 seconds

2 years ago

S7E8: Noni Jabavu - Hiding in Plain Sight

Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi asks Athambile Masola and Makhosazana Xaba about their book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home.

They reflect on when they first encountered Noni’s writing, her life and her family, the origins of the phrase “I write what I like”, the difference between living abroad and exile, Black women travelling, transnational archives and the challenges of biographical research.

Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi is an Associate Professor in English, and Director of the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class.

Athambile Masola is a writer, researcher and an award-winning poet based in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town.

Makhosazana Xaba is an award-winning multi-genre anthologist, short story writer and poet. She is an Associate Professor of Practice at the Centre for Race, Gender and Class based at the University of Johannesburg.

Athambile and Makhosazana collaborated on a collection of Noni Jabavu's Daily Dispatch columns from 1977, A Stranger at Home (Tafelberg, 2023).

Our participants also warmly remember Prof Bhekizizwe Peterson (1961-2021), a professor of African literature at Wits University and co-editor (along with Makhosazana and Khwezi Mkhize) of Foundational African Writers: Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele (Wits University Press, 2022).

In this episode we are in solidarity Andrzej Poczobut, imprisoned in Belarus. You can read more about his case here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/belarus-free-writer-and-journalist-andrzej-poczobut

As tributes, Athambile reads from Mongane Wally Serote’s “Third World Express”, Makhosazana reads Lindiwe Mabuza’s “Voices that Lead” and Victoria reads an extract from Beah Richards’s “A Black Woman Speaks … Of White Womanhood, of White Supremacy, of Peace”.

This is the final episode of the season. We’ll be back with season eight after a short break.

This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.