'Goodbye Sandton, Hello Soweto'
Njabulo S Ndebele © Lisa Burnell
COURTESY: HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT
Archive & Public Culture Associate Research Fellow Professor Njabulo Ndebele will be delivering the keynote address at the opening of 20 Years of Democracy in South Africa, a programme of concerts, films and debates, opening at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin on 28 August. The title of his opening address is 'Goodbye Sandton, Hello Soweto'.
The HDK Berlin and the South African Embassy will be celebrate this historic moment by hosting a critical appraisal of the developments since 1994. Ndebele will be appearing alongside other protagonists of the anti-apartheid movement including jazz musician Hugh Masekela, author and poet Antjie Krog, as well as representatives of the new generation, including filmmaker Khalo Matabane and Afro-futurist trendsetter Nozinja.
'Films and discussions will examine not only the successes of the transition to democracy but also the challenges the country has had to face: the wounds of the past, growing inequality, persistent social intolerance,' reads the programme statement. 'As a 'test case in democracy', the analysis of South Africa also grants insights into the promises and challenges democratic societies worldwide have to come to terms with.'
Ndebele is a fiction and essay writer, public commentator, and one of the key figures in South African higher education. Since 2013, Ndebele has served as chairman of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and in 2012 was appointed Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. His most well-known publications include the collection of essays Rediscovery of the Ordinary (COSAW, 1991), the Noma Award-winning volume of short stories Fools and Other Stories (Ravan Press, 1984), his novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela (Ayebia Clarke, 2004), and the essay collection Fine Lines from the Box (Umuzi, 2007).
Ndebele's address (with simultaneous translation into German) will be followed by a talk with Barbara Wahlster, the managing editor for literature at Deutschlandradio Kultur.
Please note that date given in last month's Gazette for Archive & Public Culture's special discussion event around Professor Ndebele's keynote address, first presented at the 40th African Literature Conference at the University of the Witwatersrand in April this year, was incorrect. On 18 September, Ndebele will reprise his presentation, To Be Or Not To Be, No Longer At Ease, which engages with historical notions of blackness, Black Consciousness, African-ness and citizenship in colonial, post-colonial and post-apartheid politics and literature, as well as with a series of questions around canons of literary work and the historical exclusion of literary expressions of experience from South African syllabi.