Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

English literature and ".
It has been ai-gued that the exposure La Gurna received during t
which inevitably drew his attention to the need to address an international audienc
\yell, inay have inadvertently led to apparent contradictions between his politics and
rature's serving historically specific political ends is thrown back into
' is somewhat problematic. Moreover, to make reference to 'La Guma's
t the relationship between culture and politics after his exile' or
aesthetic construction of his work, as exemplified in TIrrze yf [he Rzrtcherhir
According to this view, this contradiction may be attributed not only to La Guln
condition of enforced exile, which deprived him of the benefit of writing on
'intimately known community', but also to his changing 'aesthetic ideolo
(Maughan-Brown 1991:32f)''. Drawing on the statement made by La Gurna in
interview with Robert Serumaga in 1966, in which La Guma indicates his attempt
ce suggests that it was not until La Guma was in exile that he started throwing
s-a factor that seeins to have been overlooked in Maughangainst
this background, then, 1 would argue that if there are any traces
achieve a 'universality of opinion' by moving beyond a set of apartheid-create
'compartments', Maughan-Brown (1991:35,34) detects in La Guma 'an element
aesthetic back-tracking', the evidence of which is provided, inle~, c~lia, by what
gs us to the place of La Guma's
perceives as La Guma's residual belief in the 'universals of traditionalist criticism'.
One cannot dispute the traces of a liberal humanist aesthetic in some of La 011th African realist debate
Guina's extra-fictional statements. However, La Gurna's use of 'universality' in this ma's work has always been at the centre of the realist debate in South Africa-a
context seeins to have a lot to do with the writer's will to transcend the barriers ofrace in
ndication that he is known as one of the writers in South Africa who is seen as
his writing-hence La Guma's reference to the failure of writers to 'prosect ition. This debate was initiated by
ithemselves) across the colour line' earlier in that interview-and as such it rnay be in his 1967 essay, that there was a lack of
seen as La Guma's reflection on the charterist position (or the pluralism of the ANC as n-'indigenous' or 'alien'-in South African literature written by Blacks.
some people have called it). It could also be argued that La Gulna conflates uliiversality
with revolutionary internationalism as can be inferred from his assertion that the writer
what one gets from black South African writing, Nkosi (1979:222) went on to
aginative literature' without
'tries to spread out, extend his views, extend his opinions and get opinions from other
sources so tliat iic doesn't become confined to his ivory tower'; or the argument that
'universal ideas could still be expressed' even if one is writing 'within a pal-ticular
a1 facts into artistically persuasive
environment"". Viewed from this perspective, then, Maughan-Brown's d' documentary realist narrative.
assertion that once 'the concept of universals is accepted, the wliole qLies ts who, according to Nkosi, have failed to 'transmute given social
rtistically persuasive works of fiction', is Richard Rive in whose novel,
ilure 'in characterisation and imaginative
-- an situation with which he is dealing'.
r Alex la Guma who, despite the fact that
I'
In ail irlter-view both Apolion Ilavidson and Vlatlimir Sliubin coi~tirmed that 1,a Gunia's
writings wcrc popular in Russia.
''
Fcinbcrg stated to tlie author that Gums's later novcls were aimed at eliciting international
solidarity because it was fclf tliat an intcmational awareness campaign would bring more
riters have so exhaustively worked up'
ptimism ('his enthusiasm for life as it is
sugporters to the cause. La G~irna indicated in a letter to Jane Grant that his targct had not really
been an iiiternational audience. .I nevq actually have a Coreign readership in mind. but wrote,
and continue to write. the way 1 believe the story or novel should be written accorili~lg to the
gospel ofAlex IaGurna' (LaGumai11 Grant 1978:49).
"
Somc .aiiomaIics' that Mai~ghali-Brown notes in his critical essay on 7i.m~ of the
B2irchevbivdwerc idcntificdearlier by MbuleloMzalnane ( 1985:391).
'"
In a Icttel- to Crranl (I 978:50) 1.a Guma riiakes this explicit: 'thc revolution is intcrliational,
and if lliy characters act out their parts on the Soutll Af'rican stage. I hope they are also saying
sometil~ng to non-South Afl-icans'.
n and ilnagii~ative power to do justice to the desperate human situation'
in the Night despite its employment of
ich the central thrust of Nkosi's essay seems to be aimed at
J.M. Coetzee picks up this point more
ly. Coetzee argues in his 197 1 essay, 'Alex la Guina and the Responsibilities of
uth African Writer' that 'the Western line of experimentation' (which Nkosi
seem to 'perpetuate a rift between the writer and society at large'