Reading the Robben Island Bible
British playwright and lecturer at St Mary's University in London, Matthew Hahn, will introduce his play, The Robben Island Bible, in conversation with Robben Island CEO, Sibongiseni Mkhize, and leading Shakespeare scholar, David Schalkwyk.
The play is based on verbatim interviews with former political prisoners and selections from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a copy of which was circulated among the prisoners. The book's owner, Sonny Venkatrathnam, was a political prisoner on Robben Island from 1972 to 1978. When the prisoners were, for a short time, allowed to have one book, other than a religious text, with them, he had asked his wife to send him The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Venkatrathnam's copy of The Complete Works gathered gravitas (and subsequently became an object of value) as he passed it on to his fellow political prisoners in the single cells. Each of the prisoners marked passages within the text, which they found particularly moving, meaningful and profound at the time, and signed them with the date. The book now contains 32 marked passages with signatures, including those of Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Mac Maharaj, Saths Cooper, Neville Alexander and Sonny Venkatrathnam - all luminaries in the struggle for a democratic South Africa.
The selection of texts provides a fascinating insight into the thinking, conversations and pertinent themes that were in circulation among the political prisoners who fought for the transformation of South Africa. It also speaks to the resonance of Shakespeare's writing, and perhaps also its plasticity, as the text was harnessed to serve critical conversations in a specific space and time far removed from its physical origin.
A finger lunch will be served at 12.30pm - 11th-hour RSVPs: apc-admin@uct.ac.za