Almost accepted

Earlier this week I received news that I had been shortlisted for a residency I applied for last year. The email was from the Executive Director. He said that even though I wasn’t chosen he wanted to forward my proposal to the next upcoming residency programme at their venue.

I was so tickled at being shortlisted (I have never progressed so far in previous applications anywhere) that his generous offer didn’t register. When it did I labelled him a fan of my work (ego I know, but we have to find them somewhere!) and deducted that he liked my idea of writing a historical trilogy.

In my proposal I had given an overview of my project and in the “motivation” I had written that my wish is for the descendants of slavery in South Africa to produce a literature that rivals that of the United States.

During my research I had come across all these novels written by this slave “himself” and that slave “herself” while there is no significant body of literature written by slaves in our history, just a deafening silence.

That silence stretches to most of our ancestors who whispered and kept secrets from their children and grandchildren. There’s a saying in my family that encapsulates this sentiment, “muis drolle uit die peper uit” which translated means mice droppings out of the pepper.

I would venture to say that it was meant to protect the muis drolletjies but it did more harm than good. All the whispering and secrecy contributed to a feeling of shame among the ancestors that they were subjected to slavery.

And that shame was handed down to subsequent generations.

With the added censorship of slavery and apartheid in our history books to lionize the victor, there are only a few voices in the dark. The time has come to remedy it, I averred in my proposal. My modest contribution would be the trilogy.

I don’t know if I will be accepted for the next residency but the news has acted like an injection of enthusiasm. I must write this trilogy.

I hope God spares me to do that.