Women Authors From South Africa

"I hope each question I ask my guests, viewers can ask themselves so they can stop and think and consider their own journeys"

"There is a lot of pressure (in society) to be more than what you are and, in the process, we are not having conversations that matter"

"My grandmother was able to raise 11 kids, providing for them while also holding down different jobs (as a domestic worker and in a shop)"

"Although she didn’t win we were very satisfied, simply with the nomination, and we happily relaxed with another glass of wine content that Babette would have been so proud that her anti-racist work with young children, through Persona Doll Training, was being acknowledged.""

"Babette Brown came to the UK after she was forced into political exile due to her opposition to Apartheid. The author of several books on early learning and child development, at the age of 70, she went on to found Persona Dolls, making dolls of many different ethnicities and types, who would tell their stories through a teacher. Children were then encouraged to offer advice and solutions to the experiences a doll describes. This practical and non-threatening approach to dealing with difficult issues has proved especially effective with children. Her charity, established in the 2000s, produce the dolls in South Africa. Thousands of teachers globally are now trained to use the Persona Dolls approach."

"Sometimes I just hear something on the radio, in a conversation, and then it captures my imagination. It then becomes a starting point for a new story. For example, a friend told me one day that she dreamed of ripe fruit. This is how Ripe Fruit became the title of one of my books. When a framed photo of my son fell off the wall one day, the frame broke while the glass remained intact. This gave rise to the short story Glass in the Frame."

"My childhood was full of happiness and fun," Dricky told Naln. "Playing pop, kennetji, horseback riding, and so on were daily entertainments. And in the evening in the shiny, white moonlight, we frolicked on the sand dunes. When the summer days were oppressively hot, I often walked through the green vineyards to the river. Under the shady trees as I gazed across the gently flowing waters to the sand dunes on the other side, which held a wonderful charm for those who knew and loved them, my first imaginary reverie began. In my imagination, I imagined many a Bible story so vividly that I was unaware of my surroundings. Later, I started writing stories, but I was very modest about it and carefully kept them deep away."

"My favourite genre remains the short story, although it is the most difficult because one has to be able to say so much with so few words. Writing books is much more difficult than for the radio, but with the radio story you work at a pace again and you simply have to write every day."

"I write recreational reading material because I feel relaxed when I write. I never think about a specific target group or a 'someone', but just write for people."

"I can write at any time of the day or night. If someone knocks on the door, I can stop typing in the middle of a sentence. I can then sit and chat and when the gas is gone, just resume waar I quit. I don't have to wait for the inspiration or the mood."

"I love reading and visiting museums and galleries, which is also part of my work. Talking with friends over a home-cooked meal is my favorite way to spend an evening."

"Writing can't be done for leisure, but for me it's a joy of life and I love writing every day."

"Though her origins were not working class, Phyllis joined the struggle of African workers and always felt privileged that as a White woman she was accepted into SACTU so completely. Like Ray Alexander, this was because Phyllis always elevated the emancipation of Black workers in South Africa above all else."

"In order to prevent the Special Branch from confiscating all copies of SACTU materials, she would periodically send them out of the country to be kept on record elsewhere. Much of the material used in writing this book has been gathered from these sources safely kept outside the borders of Apartheid."

"A novelist herself, she always appreciated the cultural aspect of the struggle for liberation and injected her enthusiasm into SACTU activities, whether by organising a '£1-a-Day play' for one of the conferences or merely encouraging African workers to sing freedom songs at social gatherings. Phyllis and other comrades working out of Head Office did a commendable job in coordinating the various strands of SACTU work in Johannesburg until she too was banned from trade union activity in September 1963. Though she continued to assist the organisation, it became virtually impossible and Phyllis Altman left South Africa in 1964 believing she could contribute more from abroad."

"During her time at university, she took part in student demonstrations protesting the "Greyshirts and the bulldozing of Sophiatown." She earned an undergraduate degree and then finished an Honours degree in History before spending a year at the Teachers' Training College in Johannesburg. She was almost expelled from the Teachers' Training College because of her activism, but she graduated and spent three years teaching at "all White schools."

"She was very secretive about the system, using a secret code with her contacts and a system that was difficult to crack. Altman was also able to successfully deflect attempts by South African spy Craig Williamson, to infiltrate IDAF."

"In August 1996, while I was a Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town, I was struck by a series of news stories in South African newspapers in which the visual and verbal imagery seemed to me highly distinctive. I kept a collection of clippings and eventually these became the basis for my PhD on images of Islam. In the course of my studies, I conducted archival research into colonial-era paintings, newspapers and popular cultures in South Africa, and read these in juxtaposition with contemporary literary representations of Islam. This trajectory of images across two centuries became the material for a theory about representations of slavery and Islam in South Africa."

"I enjoy the reading and thinking as well as the discussion and exchange that an academic life involves. I love the smell of old books and newspapers in libraries and archives, and the possibility of original ideas that emerge from long hours in a quiet place."

"I love the creativity that emerges from a university community. Working at Penn State with my colleagues and students feels like being exposed to a constant series of illuminating ideas and opportunities for creative collaborations."

"I hope we will have developed partnerships and cooperative relations with scholars in other parts of the world, especially in the Global South. For me, such pooling of intellectual and material resources will generate new and necessary ways of engaging with the world's challenges."

"They say God laughs when we make plans: He's watched me trace my path away from war-scarred foreign lands, Where AIDS cases and unmarked graves are common as grains of desert sand, Where solemn bargains for slaves are made each day by neighbouring clans; Where I grew up. Soon as I left the womb, I was running; There was always something to escape, be it Ebola Or just that drunkard driving that Range Rover, Racing over potholes, ten shots from being sober... That was me; ever escaping, Hoping, praying and close-shaving, Evading nature's worst and Mankind at its most perverse; No helping hand to rescue me, I was the perfect refugee - See, Ive been arrested, beaten, Seized by police for no reason, Always fleeing by my teeth's skin, Till leaving, Coming to Heathrow, And finding work, and peace, and love With running no longer in my blood."

"I am a Christian and deeply religious, and life is a lot of joy and beautiful things for me. I accept each day as he comes, and try to make the best of it. You don't know in advance what will come your way every day. I trust only in the Lord, because He is always with me and not my strength."

"There's always such a buzz coming over me when I'm on a farm. A farm you have to live. But you can look at the city, you don't have to live it."

"I'm just always writing, I think it's in my system. The time when I was busiest as a principal's wife with three children in the house, I wrote the most. I've wondered a lot how one quits. At a job you retire, but with writing?"

"Racists often don’t realise that their actions are racist,"

"For each book that does get published, dozens of manuscripts are rejected. So how do I present myself as a marketable prospect to agents and publishers, somebody worth taking a risk on, perhaps even somebody worth putting some of their marketing budget behind? This is where I have to make some tough choices, not just about the right pose and outfit (black poloneck? white cotton blouse? hair up? hair down?) for the artful black and white portrait I plan to send along with the manuscript (so that publishers can visualise me on the jacket of the first edition), but also about how I position myself."

"A writer who takes the injunctions of branding to heart must have a clear idea of both the profile of the target market and how he or she wishes to position the manuscript - that is, the product - he or she is offering to them."

"If the rules of branding really do apply to bookselling - and the evidence suggests that they do - there is an added complication. If a brand is a set of expectations, those expectations can be a terrible burden"

"To insult someone to their face is to invite the possibility of words turning to fists and bullets."

"To have lost even the why or the what for - to dream and to wake with the weight of even the mechanical why even the mechanical wherefore -"

"As coming upon a puff-adder coiled on the carpet under the desk"

"Personally? To be recognized. On a larger scale: less dumbing down in readers."

"I like it and it is a great way to pass the time. Initially, I just thought I could write; now I know I can. . Interview question- Why do you write?"

"Experimental writing inspires me. I get my ideas from reading, traveling, and talking."

"I went to a writing workshop with Lionel Abrahams."

"I have two books – one a sort of travel book, experimental, with pictures by an artist, another a novel based on the life of Rimbaud. Both are in waiting for a publisher but these are hard to find these days."

"Hell isn't other people, it's other parents."

"and then no one was flying anywhere. You can’t imagine how much the world can change in six months."

"She laughs, and that's really all he wanted."

"You think fear eats up your capacity for wonder, but the awe cuts through her dulled and dimmed mind. Almost a religious experience."

"The world is condensing, attention spans narrowing to tiny screens, and there are people who are wittier and smarter, who know how to write for those nanospaces."

"Sometime I think I'd like to torture him to death. Other times, I think I'd forgive him. Because that would be worse."

"Time heals all wounds. Wounds clot, eventually. The seams knit together."

"Do not settle. Never fucking settle."

"Fear makes you ugly."

"Fear festers in the imagination. It’s not fear’s fault. That’s just the way it’s made."

"No one said it would be pretty, yanking despair out of a woman."

"The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless with a terrible fury all its own."

"Everyone lives three versions of themselves; a public life, a private life and a secret life. Watch any kid and how he acts with his friends at school. Ask his momma what he’s like at home. Try and get her to believe the same kid robbed the corner store. “Not my boy,” she’ll say and she’s right. Because her boy wouldn’t do that. But we are different things to different people in different contexts."