Let the Young Lions ROAR.

International recognition is still the surest route to publication for black writers in the New South Africa, but black cultural self-expression is more vibrant than ever before. Here's an on-the-ground special report.

From the stage of the small community theater, Florence Masebe, known to this audience as a star in the popular South African TV soap opera, Generations, unveils another side of herself through her poetry.

Then comes folk storyteller Gcina Mhlope weaving tales in English and Xhosa about the trickster hare, the sneaky hyena, flying dolphins, the dumb baboon and the wise tortoise.

Someone in the crowd yells, "Where are the young lions?" A young man with dreadlocks takes the stage. He reads a poem written in English and Zulu that ends with the words, "My soul is replenished. I have found my African rhythm." There is applause, and the crowd shouts, "Roar young lions, roar!"

Welcome to another Wednesday "Literary Night" at the Windybrow Centre for the Arts in Hillbrow, a mostly poor, mostly black residential neighborhood located just minutes from downtown Johannesburg, and where since last April, some of South Africa's best known writers have been coming to read from their works. Playwright Zakes Mda has read excerpts from his recently published novel, The Heart of Redness. Nobel laureate and novelist Nadine Gordimer and poet Don Mattera have also participated, sharing the platform with writers who have yet to gain much public recognition outside of Hillbrow. Following the guest readings there is an "open stage" session where anyone can take the mikes and after that a discussion which usually spills over from the intimate theater to the adjacent playhouse bar.

The program is organized under the auspices of the South African Writers Federation (SAWFED), a group founded in 1995 to serve as an umbrella organization for various writers' associations in the country. "The literary readings were originally planned as a free, weekly poetry reading but the audiences proved small," said Morakabe "Raks" Seakhoa, SAWFED chairperson. The format was changed to a two-hour, bi-monthly schedule and expanded to include writers, performing artists and intellectuals from across the cultural and social spectrum who would interact with the audience in the discussion that follows the readings.

"The response to the program has been really surprising," said Walther K. Chakela, Windybrow executive artistic director since 1993. "Instead of every other week, we've actually found ourselves here just about every Wednesday night. I would say that the literary program is actually becoming the leading literary program in the country at the moment."

A New Freedom in Self Expression

What's happening at the Windybrow is really a minor miracle. Not only are people coming out to listen to people read literature. They're venturing out at night to Hillbrow, an area like so many parts of Johannesburg that could from its looks be any urban American inner city. In the not-so-distant apartheid days, Hillbrow was once a posh, all-white residential area and for a time, despite the restrictive racial separation laws, it was a hot spot of bohemian activity.

Today it's a place that most Jo'burg locals avoid. They warn visitors to do the same. Hillbrow today is also home to untold numbers of black foreign migrants from across the continent, many of them in the country illegally. Called derisively "makwerekwere"--which means "people who jabber like grasshoppers"--they have come seeking work in South Africa, which despite its internal social and economic problems, remains the continent's largest and most prosperous country.

The popularity of the Wednesday readings at the Windybrow mirrors an explosion of activity taking place in the arts in what is so often called the "New South Africa"--that is to say, post-apartheid South Africa. The local theater scene is bustling. Musically the country is rocking to its own beat--everything from traditional music that's fusing the sounds and rhythms of the country's various ethnic groups, gospel and the ultra hip urban beat of kwaito (kway-toh), South Africa's unique, funky hip-hop sound.

On the literary scene there has been a flurry of discussion about writing, writers, and the state of both in this new, officially nonracial society. There's a growing focus on the subject of literacy and also a recent effort to give overdue recognition to black writers, many of whom, because of the country's political history, are better known abroad than at home.

This includes a push to give historical due to pioneer writers such as Sol Plaatje, a linguist, novelist, crusading journalist and pioneer in South Africa's black press and a founding member of the African National Congress (ANC). He was the first black South African to publish a novel in English--his now classic historic tale called Mhudi.

This "artsy" trend is having a spillover effect influencing everything from what young people are wearing to how they're dreading their locks. The language they're speaking--"tsotsitaal"--the slang from the Township streets is incorporated into the cultural mainstream. "You can definitely see the influence of this slang and kwaito music in the poetry especially," said Chakela.

All this activity is really about self-expression and finally having the freedom to do so, said Ruth Benghu, a writer who cut her teeth in journalism in Soweto during the heated days of the late 1970s. "Apartheid muzzled everybody," Benghu said. "As a writer you write about your experiences. Back then, just talking about your experiences was a crime. People had to learn how to say things without actually saying them."

Censorship Under Apartheid

Under the apartheid rules there were more than 90 categories of possible offense under the censorship laws. Efforts to control information were the rule. Radio was not introduced in South Africa until 1934 and television not until 1976. Both operated under strict government control.

While there remained strong anti-apartheid voices in the media with such publications as Drum Magazine, The Sowetan and The Voice, those who spoke out against or documented abuses of the apartheid system were severely punished. Steve Biko, the activist-journalist and leader of South Africa's "Black Consciousness Movement," was just one of many who died in the struggle. Many other writers were forced into exile. Some of them found opportunities to publish abroad.

"It is challenging to write in a post-apartheid era when one has to go beyond the protest writing of the past," offers Elinor Bateza Sisulu, a noted children's author. "I suppose it is a good time to be a black writer because there are whole areas of black life and experience that have not been written about, both in fiction and nonfiction. The white South African experience has been explored to death, and so it is that much more difficult for white writers to present something different," she said.

For example, she continued, "in my writing I try to address the dearth of contemporary stories for black children in Southern Africa." One of her best known works, The Day Gogo Went to Vote, (Little Brown & Co., September 1999, $5.95, ISBN 0-316-70271-4) has sold well in the United States, especially among African Americans. "Unfortunately it has not sold well in South Africa mainly because of the fact that picture books are expensive and few people can afford them."

What are these writers writing about? Responds Seakhoa of SAWFED. "It's a frequently asked question ... usually it's a question coming from Europe. The question is always loaded," he continued. "You know, `Now that apartheid is dead, surely you can talk about something else.'

"When the question comes up, I reply that Jews are still doing movies and writing and publishing books about the period of the Second World War or the pogroms that happened in Russia centuries ago. And now we're hardly ten years out of this thing--apartheid--and we're being asked not to write about our experience. Why don't you write about something new? Can't you write about love?" Seakhoa said he sees it as "the duty of writers" in South Africa "not to keep apartheid alive, but to keep the facts there."

Barriers to Publishing Black Writers

The major challenge facing black writers in South Africa today is getting published, said Seakhoa. "Most publishers in South Africa are not interested in fiction and even less in poetry. Our publishing industry here is very small. There are very few black publishers, and in general, most publishers here are interested in the educational market."

The writers who are most often published are those who already have international recognition. Someone like a Nadine Gordimer, he offered by way of example, who is white and also the first South African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, "she probably gets a book contract for every idea she has before she writes it."

In contrast, he continued, "the same can not be said for someone like E'zekiel Mphahlele, who is black and who is one of our top writers. He has to negotiate and beg and seduce in order to get published. Those are the dynamics in this country. And yet, when you say, `There is racism in South African publishing,' they'll say, `What are you talking about?'"

During the Apartheid Era, the South African writers who became known internationally were mostly white--like Alan Paton, Nadine Gordimer or J. M. Coetzee. There were several black and other nonwhite South African writers whose work was published in exile--such as Miriam Tlalti, Bessie Head, Alex La Guma or Mongane Wally Serote. As their work was banned in South Africa--par for all writers who didn't tow the apartheid line--these names are often better known outside their own country. Ironically, during those years South Africans had more access to works by other Africans and African Americans. Often these were books that were smuggled into the country. Thus many black South African writers today cite these works from abroad as their first exposure to writings by black authors. Only later were they exposed to other black South African authors.

Add to this, the fact that African writers overall, with a few notable exceptions, like Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka, maybe a Mariama Ba, lack exposure beyond readers connected to the academic world. If one doesn't take an African literature class one would not know that most of these world-class African writers exist.

There is also South Africa's problem of illiteracy. It's estimated that more than 40 percent of South Africa's estimated population of 44 million cannot read. Across South Africa there is a push to promote reading and decrease illiteracy rates. In response, one of the country's largest educational publishing houses, Heinemann, has been promoting its extensive offerings to a wider market and to also promoting reading in indigenous languages, according to Frank Horley, company marketing director. Heinemann, which is known in the U.S. and internationally for its African Writers Series, recently launched the Mamela Afrika Series, contemporary African literature including writers in one of South Africa's nine indigenous languages--Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Ndebele, Pedi, Swazi, Tsonga, Venda and Tswana. There are 11 official languages in South Africa--nine indigenous languages, plus Afrikaans and English.

Cultivating More Diverse Book Buyers

Still, in the mass market, it's English and Afrikaans books that sell the most. And selling books in South Africa isn't easy period, said Jill Van Zyl, retail development manager for Exclusive Books, a Barnes & Noble or Border Books-type of operation that is South Africa's largest and oldest retailer dealing exclusively in books. (The 50-year-old operation has 27 stores across South Africa). The book-buying market in South Africa is small, said Van Zyl: "We have a population of over 44 million but only about 500,000 of them buy books on a regular basis." She classifies the profile of the "average" book buyer as "white and middle class."

"The types of books people are buying tends to mirror popular international trends," she said, noting that you'll find the names of those you'd find on any bestseller list in the United States or Great Britain on the Exclusive top seller list. "We're also quite influenced by Oprah here," Van Zyl continued. The Oprah Winfrey Show is aired in South Africa--early in the day and late at night, so the audience it attracts is mostly a white, stay-at-home female audience. "If Oprah likes a book then everybody comes in and asks for it," she said, adding that most of those buyers are white women.

Van Zyl said that Exclusive Books makes every effort to promote local South African writers regardless of their race. For example, she said, sales of Zakes Mda's recently released novel, The Heart of Redness, have been good. Mda, who is black, is one of the well-known South African writers. "There aren't that many novels being published here, and in general people don't want to read `struggle' literature. People are falling in love, driving 4x4sd. They want to read about what's going on now."

Writer Gcina Mhlophe believes strongly that there exists an untapped market for selling books--particularly among black readers. Not only is there a market for books written by black people, she asserts, but also books written in indigenous languages. "It's not just about publishing it's also about marketing and distribution," she said. "It's a very curious thing what goes on in South Africa where books are concerned--whether you write for children or grown-ups. Hardly anybody finds these books. Unless you are a president or a politician you can't even get your books in the big book stores here."

She believes that black people should start forming book clubs and developing their own distribution networks. "Distribution, bookselling, whatever--they've got to be worked on. It's our job. The struggle is never over."

Wilma Jean Emanuel Randle is a writer/photographer based in Dakar, Senegal. The former director of the African Women's Media Center and a longtime journalist in the U.S. before she went to work in Africa, Randle was previously a business writer for the Chicago Tribune and for newspapers in Minnesota and Michigan. She highlights the captivating literary talent flourishing in the aftermath of the political upheaval that created the New South Africa on page 22.