Mangothobane

This is the story of a Black South African who was brought up, lived and died in Soweto or thereabouts. It is very unlikely that history will remember him - or the many others like him. No important people attended Vusi's funeral. At one point in his life, he was described by the Chairman of a great gold-mining corporation in South Africa as a 'nobody'. According to the measure of the world, that is what he was.But the dark days of apartheid and the lighter but deceptive days of the new democratic South Africa are well-known for stunting lives and wasting human capital. A white South African who was popularly known by the praise name, Damase, forged in the crucible of apartheid race relations a lifetime friendship with Vusi. According to him, there was a great deal more to the nobody than the world would have thought. The course of Damase and Vusi's friendship begins with a chance meeting in the library of a local university. At first it was the Zulu language that brought Vusi and Damase together - - but their friendship rapidly grew to be so much more. The book describes in lively fashion how that friendship developed and at the same time reveals a lived history - a history of the time and of the place. It is the 1970s in Johannesburg, Soweto and the Reef in general, a time when change was afoot, when the currents of social, economic and cultural developments were converging on the day the end began - June 16th, 1976.The rhythm of their friendship unconsciously follows the beat of the historic drum. In the beginning there are the bwat's, risky but enchanted parties. Vusi has a settled job in the library. The two go to Swaziland for the weekend, pursuing escape and pleasure but finding food for thought. The growing embourgoisement in Soweto, the rise of Black Consciousness, the increased militancy of the workers and the intensification of the battle for economic survival are reflected in Vusi's new house, the loss of his job and his efforts to stand on his own without having to work for the white baas.The growing polarisation between black and white, which provided the stimulus for the great uprising and which set in motion the unstoppable march to freedom, impacts cruelly on Vusi and Damase's friendship as friends and even family begin to decry it - until finally Damase decides to leave his homeland. Much later he returns for periodic visits and Vusi and he renew their friendship. It is during this period that Damase comes to know what Vusi has been through and what he has achieved in the tumultuous years before the negotiations that led to the death of legislative apartheid. He also comes to know how he has been cheated and robbed of the fruits of his achievements in the new South Africa and sadly watches as Vusi's entrails, like the Spartan boy's, are devoured by the wolf of rage and impotence. Despite the heavy pall of apartheid and its tragic waste and degradation, people managed to make for themselves such sweetness - as the story of Vusi demonstrates - and in the process innovate and conjure exhilarating ideas, wit and behaviour. All this is exemplified in the power, versatility and inventiveness of the languages they spoke. So the story of Vusi and Damase's friendship is not only a tale of transcultural and racial relations and the history of the time. It is also a linguistic voyage of discovery.
About the Author: Rhodes Scholar, alumnus of Cape Town, Oxford and Leeds, fourth generation African of Gaelic descent, conversant in six African languages, published author, cultural activist and academic in South Africa, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh has lived in Zimbabwe from 1984 to the present. He has a B.A. Hons. from Cape Town, an M.Phil. from Oxford and a Ph.D. from Leeds. Published books include: "The Making of a Servant", translations of Xhosa satirical poetry with Z.S.Qangule (Ophir/Ravan), "Theatre and Cultural Struggle in South Africa" (Zed Books), "Making People's Theatre" (Wits University Press), "South African People's Plays" ed. (Heineman African Writers Series), "Ngoma: Approaches to Arts Education in Southern Africa" ed. (Zimbabwe Academy of Arts Education/Themba Books). "Zimbabwe: Challenging the Stereotypes" (Themba Books) and "Evesdrop: the Tales of Adam Kok" (Mshengu Publications). Co-founded the following: Workshop '71 Experimental Theatre (Johannesburg, 1971), Theatre Arts Departments (Addis Ababa University, 1980/University of Zimbabwe, 1986), Zambuko/Izibuko (political theatre group, Harare, 1985), the arts education for development and employment organization, the CHIPAWO Trust (Harare, 1989) and the Zimbabwe Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ZATCYP/ASSITEJ). In 2012 he won the Ibsen Prize for a regional theatre project, 'Negotiating Ibsen in Southern Africa'.