Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

Alex la Gums k Politics and Aesthet
October 1963 both La Guma and his wife were detained under the 'Ninety-day solita
confinement clause'. After Blanche's release from jail, she was also served with
banning order. Her husband continued to be under house arrest after his release. L
Guma was again arrested under the ' 180 days solitary confinement clause' in 1966 an
upon his release he was instructed by the African National Congress to leave Sout
Africa with his family and settle in exile in London. La Guma told Cecil Abrahams:
It was felt that after having spent four years under house arrest and going for
the iifth year with the prospect of another five years ... one cot~ld be more
constructive outside. So we came to Europe to early on what we were doillg
on another front (La Gunla 199 1 :25).
The period from 1962 to 1965 was significant with regard to La Guma's writing as h
used the restriction orders to get down to the business of writing fiction. Apart from
r~umber of Short stories, La Guina wrote a novella, A Walk in the Night, whi
published by Mbari in Ibadan Nigeria in 1962. Between 1962 and 1963 La Gum
And a Threefold Cord, which was subsequently published by Seven Seas Publishers
East Berlin in 1964 while La Guma was in prison in Roeland Street. On his relea
prison, La Gulna wrote The Stone Country. As can be seen, then, the period fro
to 1965, the larger part of which La Guma spent under twenty-four hour house
was indeed a period during which La Guma 'did most of his writing' (La
199 1 : 12; Abrahams 1985).
During the period of exile in London, La Guma continued with his
work-addressing anti-apartheid gatherings as a representative of the AN
United Kingdom in 1966 and 1967. He also retained his membership of and w
the SACP (which had been established as an underground movement in South Afric
1953). Because of the secrecy that Party members maintained during the period
repression this has not been recorded in earlier biographical accounts". Forth
of survival, Blanche La Guma worked at London hospitals, while La Guma worked
a private radio agency owned by Dennis Duerden. While working for Duerden, L
Gurna wrote a number of detective stories 'based on a fictitious African detecti
named Captain Zondie' (Abrahams 1985: 17). When the private radio agency close
down La Gums found work as an insurance clerk at Abbey Insurance C
London, a firm for which he worked from 1968 to 1970. La Guma's period in
also marked by a number of important developments with regard to hi
productivity. As early as 1969-three years after his arrival in London-La
awarded the first Lotus Prize for literature by the Afro-Asian Miters Association,
prestigio~~s award which he accepted from Prime Minister Indira Ghandhi atNew Del
-
I-
i a171 ii~iichtrd to Ra~.i-y Feinberg. I,aGurna1s coin~ade
this to 111~ altcr~tion
in an SACP unit in exile, wl>o l~ro~~gl~t
in aconversatioll I hatl with him at Mayibuye Centre OII 24 Marc12 1994.
zilnni Mlihize
dia in 1970. This award must have served as an impetus for La Guma's production
s next work, In the Fog of fhe Seatsons' End, a novel on the undei-ground activities
rdinary people who have decided to wage an anned struggle against racial
ism. This novel was, according to La Gurna, conceived and drafted in South
although it was fully written in London (see Abrahams 1985: 18). Perhaps more
cantly, La Guma's period of exile afforded him an opportuni~ to attend and
een culture andpolitics.
Soon after his arrival in London, La Guina was invited to participate in the
a shared ideas with other African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Wole
ka, both ofwhom were generous in their accolades for his literary talent. It was at
rature and colnmitment in an open debate. In the same year, and iininediately after
conference in Stockholm, La Gumawas invited as a guest at the Fourth Congress of
Soviet Union was the first of many to come'. These regular visits to the Soviet
afforded La Guma an opportunity to have constant contact with the Soviet
ers Union and must have had an impact on his aesthetic coinmitinent to socialist