23 Feb 2014

"The years spent here, what I saw as a child and reflected on as an adult made me a writer and gave me a serious theme," says Carolyn Slaughter, daughter of a former Bechuanaland Protectorate District Commissioner.Slaughter said on Wednesday, February 19 during a public lecture at the University of Botswana in Gaborone that her writing came out of Bechuanaland, out of the life then and time, citing that it gave her a voice.

The ability to make music out of words, command metaphors, control of voice, tone and emotion she said were critical for writing.“There must be something that you simply have to say; a good writer must possess some region of experience that has transfixed him or her, illuminate the experience and communicate it to others,” she said.

When reflecting on the African literature, Slaughter noted that an author as the word suggests has power and authority,  saying foreigners have in many ways grabbed it by taking up the narratives of countries not their own.She said they have been exploiters, observers and interpreters of what they saw, adding that they had the power to make vision of history influential, even though it was partial, often dismissive and inaccurate about Africans and Africa.

She dismissed the whites who wrote about African history, saying they were spectators and have distorted the stories and history of African countries.“How can we write about the effects of imperialism and the racial violence done to Africans, when we were the perpetrators of that violence?” she wondered.

Furthermore, Slaughter observed that writers in African countries take on colonial oppression, the struggle for independence, the disappointments of post- independence, and effects of modernity on village life, notions female identity and violence to women, saying they often choose to write in African languages rather than for the lucrative English language marker.

A writer’s association in Zimbabwe she said promotes writing in all the African languages and stood for the rights of the writer, saying there was a writer’s international network, a writer’s union African publishers network which promotes indigenous writing and most importantly the Weaver press which needs permission from the police to a book launch.

When commenting, Lauri Kubuitsile, the author of “The Fatal Playout” said a lot of writers blame the government for not supporting them noting that one of her books has since been in the market but sold only 11 copies.Distribution for African writers, she said was a serious problem and she urged them to venture into e-books instead of waiting for the publishers to assist them.

While the author of “My white GrandaPa” Enole Ditsheko said it was essential for writers to have structures saying without them in place they would not be able to get their work in the market. ENDS