Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
IN July 2011, the Intwasa Festival koBulawayo announced that it was extending the deadline for its writing competition.
The reason for the extension was simple. Weeks after Intwasa had started calling for entries for the competition, named after the most published Ndebele author, Ndabezinhle Sigogo, only a few low-quality entries had been submitted.
“We have not received any good entries, especially in the Ndebele category,” said festival administrator, Runyararo Mutandi.
“The entries we received have been very disappointing. We would like to have some more material that is written in indigenous languages.”
While there was a drought in the Ndebele category, the English language competition was enjoying a season of plenty. The entries were simply piling up, putting to shame the Ndebele pile number as the Queen’s language reigned supreme. Some entries had even floated on to the Intwasa organisers’ desks from beyond the country’s borders.
“The English entries are very interesting, as some of the entries were from far away places like Greece,” said Mutandi.
Seven years later, not much has changed.
Mutandi is still an administrator at Intwasa and has since won respect as one of the unsung heroes on the local arts scene, an under-appreciated dynamo whose efforts are only known to those behind the scenes.
Literature in iSiNdebele has also continued its slow, sad march towards death with Intwasa only honouring English writers in its writing competition this year. The Ndebele part of the competition has been scrapped but few seemed to notice. Indeed, fewer seemed to care. It seemed normal and acceptable that the winners of a writing competition set to herald the city’s new writing talent would come from works penned in English, a second language to most in the city Intwasa celebrates its supreme.
This, in all likelihood, is because there perennial problem of few, if any, entries would have dogged the competition if the category had been included.
So, what has happened to all the Ndebele writers, if there are any left at all?
It is a question that historian and author Pathisa Nyathi has also grappled with. As one of the authors that came through the expert hands of the legendary Sigogo and saw his pen at work first hand, Nyathi is no doubt about what has caused the decline.
“So, for me it’s fair to say that there’s noticeable decline,” said Nyathi.
“One of the reasons for this is the lack of an institute that nurtures young writers. Previously we had the Literature Bureau that had the likes of Ndabezinhle Sigogo and those were the experienced hands that were helping young writers in iSiNdebele find their feet.
“The reason for this is that when one is an aspiring writer, they have the desire to write but they don’t know how to develop into a fully-fledged writer. So back then when you showed an interest in being a writer, the likes of Sigogo would hold your hand show you how to develop a plot, characterisation and other aspects that went into building a story. When we started those are the people who helped us and that was a proven method and process of transforming people into writers,” he said.
The Literature Bureau met its death at the hands of Esap at the beginning of the 1990s and the development of young writers, according to Nyathi, has not been the same since.
“We had publishers like Mambo Press and Longman working with the Literature Bureau. So you’ll see a lot of Ndebele novels in the past were published as a result of the collaboration of, for example, Mambo Press and the Literature Bureau. As a result of this, the quality of writing was at a higher level. That is no longer the case.
“There is no co-ordinating organisation anymore like we had with the Ndebele Language Committee that was led by the likes of Sigogo. So, no one monitors how young writers are using the language. Everyone ends up writing the way they like and breaking the rules of the language in the process. This was not the case during the times of Sigogo and others because they could act as custodians of that would make sure that all the young writers wrote in a uniform way,” said Nyathi.
For Cont Mhlanga, who credits the prolific Sigogo for steering him in the right direction when he worked on his first novel, Ngabe Kade Ngisazi, the death of structures to assist promising authors like he once was has led to the dramatic decline of the Ndebele novel.
“The main problem, in my opinion, is that the publishers are dead. The companies that should be publishing these books are not there anymore. I’m sure that you can check for yourself how many publishers publishing in iSiNdebele. Even in Bulawayo you would struggle to find even one. All of them have died. That’s why we are having trouble finding any new young Ndebele authors or books published in the language,” he said.
This, Nyathi concurred, has meant that the older generation of writers in iSiNdebele like Sigogo had remained superstars even in death while their potential successors languished in the shadows.
“The net effect of all this is that the set books that are there in high schools are still those good, well edited, quality books that were written decades ago. They take turns to replace each other. You’ll get one by Isaac Mpofu, then it is replaced by one from Barbara (Makhalisa), then one from Sigogo. This is because the current standard of books being written cannot match them,” he said.
The few books that were written by young writers in iSiNdebele were largely unreadable because of poor editing, said Cornelius Mayuyu Ncube, author of Angilankani Lawe.
“The problem that we have with young writers at the moment is that most of the books are poorly edited. Most of the books that I come across from young writers have a problem in editing and you can tell that they are just writing from out of their own desire but without much guidance. So even if their stories are great you feel it’s not worth reading even from the beginning because of the shoddy editing,” Ncube said.
According to educator and author, Thabani Moyo, a disdain for indigenous languages was also a factor that discouraged those looking to pen books in isiNdebele.
“We’re seeing fewer and fewer writers in indigenous languages coming through because most prefer English and they tend to despise those writing in indigenous languages. This is because most think doing so makes them sophisticated and elite in a sense. There’s also the thought that writing in English gives them a wider readership,” Moyo.
He pointed out that there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel, with some young authors prepared to tackle the tough task of bringing the Ndebele novel back to life.
“Despite this there are some encouraging developments. I recently saw a young student from Sizani High School called Umcuphi publishing his first book. That is encouraging. We also have Mihla Sitsha who is a natural hard worker and has several anthologies and novels that I was pleased to find in an office on a recent visit to Harare. A person like him, in truth, is an isolated case that is far from the norm but it gives one hope,” he said.
Moyo’s optimism was also echoed by Mhlanga, with the arts doyen saying he had seen younger people take more interest in local language and culture.
“In my opinion there’s a renaissance of the Ndebele language among the younger people. Most young people love the language and they’ve started again taking a keen interest in the culture. They’re very proud of who they are but I think what we don’t have are support structures that can allow them to elevate their love of the language to another level,” he said.
However, despite the optimism, Nyathi said he did not see how Ndebele literature count make a comeback while those meant to read it had an identity crisis. As long as this state of affairs continued, the search for the next Ndabezinhle Sigogo or Barbara Makhalisa would take longer than it should.
“What needs to be looked at is the disgust for local languages that some parents have. You get parents that are happy that their children cannot speak isiNdebele properly or some that encourage this by speaking only to their children in English. They take pride in the fact that their children say that reading in IsiNdebele is hard or the fact they can’t read a Bible in isiNdebele. When you have such social conditions then inevitably you’re going to have a deficiency of writers in the long term,” Nyathi said.