Ingrid Winterbach: The Book Of Happenstance

[Eric]

Ingrid Winterbach: The Book of Happenstance

I have not yet read this new novel by South African author Ingrid Winterbach, but judging by things of hers that I have read, this is likely to be interesting.

There is an excerpt here:

Book Excerpt: The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach | BOOK SA - Magazine

And a review here:

NB Publishers - Book of Happenstance, The

More general things about this author can be found at:

http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/writers/1051-ingrid-winterbach.html

and

Ingrid Winterbach (South Africa)

She is one of the most interesting South African authors today. Now, at last, she is beginning to appear in the English language. This novel appeared in September 2008. The South African English-language review begins with this:

Can an English translation of an award-winning Afrikaans novel ever do the original justice -- especially if it is a complex and finely nuanced literary work? This is the question many asked Afrikaans novelist Ingrid Winterbach when two of her best-known works were translated into English. But the other question is: Can high-profile Afrikaans writers afford not to have their work made available to an even bigger audience?

Source: Not lost in translation - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source

And here is Ingrid Winterbach on YouTube, reading in English from that work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRYAKIcqnk

 

[titania7]

Eric,
Many thanks for this thread on Winterbach's Book of Happenstance.
I checked out all the links, and I'm quite, quite impressed by her.
I've written down the name of this book to order first--then, I shall
move forward. I love the title of her book, The Elusive Moth.
From the creativity she demonstrates via the written word, it isn't difficult to believe that she is also an artist.

The chapter I read from The Book of Happenstance was remarkable.
I particularly was struck by the phrase, "the wind of death." This
makes me think of the final movement in Frederic Chopin's "Funeral March" Sonata, which, I hear, was intended to sound a bit like the wind whirring and whipping through a deserted cemetery
on a starless night.

You seem to have a knack, Eric, for introducing me to a variety
of phenomenal writers. I feel compelled to keep paying attention
to your recommendations!

Cheers,
Titania

 

[Eric]

Yes, my "mission" is to try to prove that there are authors out there that don't write in English, may even write in languages that have been "written off" for political reasons, but are just as interesting as authors that write in English.

This happenstance book is, of course a tricky in translation, because an educated English-speaking South African reader will know some Afrikaans. They might have hated the language for decades because of apartheid, but I imagine there are now increasing numbers of people who are genuinely interested in taking on board all the ethnic communities of South Africa, and their literatures, and don't make the Afrikaners the exception.

I am going to obtain both the Afrikaans and the English versions, so I can see where the translator has had to compensate or explain. Because, pretty obviously, an English-speaking reader from outside South Africa will just see a list of words beginning with "dood-" in that excerpt, without necessarily having any connotations, associations or memories attached to any of them.

It would not surprise me if all those bracketed definitions in the "dood-" part of the excerpt were added to the English version, where in the Afrikaans version they do not need an explanation. This is one of those things that translators have to think about.

*

"The Elusive Moth" is a much more conventional novel. Here are descriptions and reviews:

artsmart : arts news from kwazulu-natal : literature

The Write Company | The Elusive Moth

And IW's CV is at:

Ingrid Winterbach, an Afrikaner in Durban - Fred De Vries

Winterbach first published this novel in 1993 in Afrikaans as "Karolina Ferreira" under the pseudonym of Lettie Viljoen, then in English translation in 2005, under her own name. But as even the English translation was published in South Africa, I don't think that Winterbach has received the attention abroad that she deserves.

*

Another of her novels, also more conventional:

To Hell with Cronj?​

Ingrid Winterbach​

Human & Rousseau
June 2007
R145
Pages 272
Softcover
ISBN: 978-0-7981-4832-0​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-2] [/SIZE][/FONT]​

The Afrikaans edition of this novel was awarded the Hertzog Prize in 2004. The translation is by Elsa Silke, winner of the 2006 SATI Prize for outstanding translation in the Fiction category for This Life (by Karel Schoeman).

The events in this novel take place during the last few weeks of the Anglo-Boer War. A small group of Boer soldiers departs from the Colony to the Free State to take a traumatised young man back to his home. Two of the men, Reitz Steyn and Ben Maritz, are scientists, and the novel focuses on their experiences. The suffering and hardships of the war have left their mark on this little group, and especially Reitz and Ben are increasingly aware of the futility of it all. On their way they are apprehended and held in a strange camp by other Boers. After they are wounded during the execution of a mysterious assignment Reitz and Ben are cared for by three women on a nearby farm. Their stay with these women offers a chance for healing in more than one respect. An impressive novel written with an understated poignancy and drama about the futility of war.

– “An exquisite book, an essential voice …” – Antjie Krog

– “This unforgettable novel establishes Ingrid Winterbach as one of the most important novelists writing in Afrikaans.” – Thys Human

– “… a beautiful, a deep novel” – Gunther Pakendorf – “With this excellent novel Ingrid Winterbach proves again that she is one of our most original … novelists.” – Louise Viljoen

– “A powerful and resonating text …” – Petra M?ller

 

[titania7]

Eric,
Another post on Winterbach! Ah, lovely. I think The Elusive Moth sounds particularly engrossing. The reviewer, Terry Ellen, says this novel is a "compelling and seductive read." And Winterbach sounds like a good writer to start with to find out more about
the history of South Africa, of which, much to my chagrin, I know little.

By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed all the links--and visited them all. One of the most interesting remarks that Winterbach made....that gave insight into her thoughts and feelings was:

"I believe with the Buddhists that life is mainly suffering. And it's not difficult to stay with that. There are brief moments of happiness, but.....the bigger picture is essentially transience and loss."

Eric, I borrowed a couple of your Winterbach links for my new thread, Writers' Thoughts on Translations. Just wanted to let you know....


Cheers,
Titania

 

[Eric]

The problem with South Africa with regard to discovering literature written in Afrikaans is that translations from that language into English were, until recently, few and far between, for the obvious reason that everyone hated apartheid. Regrettably, many English-speaking White South Africans have not quite got over this prejudice, from what I can figure out. (I have never been to South Africa.)

When a book was translated into Dutch or English from Afrikaans, it had to be a novel that showed how iniquitous apartheid was. So people such as Andr? Brink did well. He even changed over, during his writing career to writing a separate English version of some of his novels.

But what I appreciate about Ingrid Winterbach, apart from the subtlety, is that she is prepared to bring up the sensitive issue of the Anglo-Boer War, fought around 1900. She's not propagandistically on the side of the Afrikaners either. The Boers ( = Afrikaners) too made stupid mistakes. One of their number, Smuts, even sided with the Brits. But long before a Dutch immigrant called Hendrik Verwoerd introduced the system of apartheid to South Africa, a system that has given Afrikaners a bad name, these Afrikaners themselves were fighting an anti-imperialist struggle against the British Empire. (Even Churchill was involved in this war, as a young man.)

What my fellow Brits like to forget is the concentration camps and the scorched earth policy employed against the Boers in that war. Yes, concentration camps. Brits should be ashamed of the fact that it was not the Nazis that invented the term "concentration camp", but the Brits, during the Anglo-Boer War, around 1900. It is estimated that about 25,000 women and children (mostly children!) were rounded up by the Brits, their farms were burnt down and they died of hunger in the concentration camps.

However you wriggle, these facts are acknowledged by all sides nowadays, and deemed to be roughly accurate. The Afrikaners (or Boers) at the time were no doubt a ragbag of well and poorly disciplined men, with a mixture of arms, and maybe a bit chaotic, fighting a guerrilla war against the organised might of the British Empire. But while every liberation struggle in Black Africa is praised and written about, when Whites struggled against the British Empire, this struggle is more or less forgotten - because of the mistake the Afrikaner establishment made, half a century later, in embracing apartheid.

It is unforgiveable that, about 20 years ago, Dutch students forced their way into the Afrikaans library on a canal in Amsterdam and literally started throwing the books into the water. This action, by politically correct middle-class students was sheer vandalism. But blinded by a hatred of apartheid, half way across the world, these young people thought it perfectly legitimate to destroy books, in the same way as the Nazis (book-burning) and Communists (book-chopping) did. Book-drowning was their method.

 

[Eric]

Ingrid Winterbach is visiting the Netherlands during November 2008:

Sunday November 9th at the Fasihi literary festival in Nijmegen, along with Elinor Sisulu (Zimbabwe), Chika Unigwe (Nigeria), Adam Shafi (Tanzania), Shimmer Chinodya (Zimbabwe), plus local Dutch authors Abdelkader Benali (Moroccan-born), Vamba Sherif (Liberia-born) and Steven van de Vijver (non-fiction author, tropical medicine in Africa), plus Lieve Joris, the Belgian travel writer.

Tuesday 11th November at the Fasihi festival, this time in Utrecht.

Both events involve readings, but also a discussion about Africa, poverty, violence and individual expression, plus the differences between African and Western literature.

Winterbach's trip to the Netherlands is occasioned by the Dutch translation of the happenstance novel as "Het boek van toeval en toeverlaat". She won three South African prizes with this book: the M-Net Boekprys, the W F Hofmeyersprys and the University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing. Another of her novels, "Niggie", has also been translated into Dutch.

The Fasihi festival is annual and affords African and Dutch authors the opportunity to meet one another

 

[titania7]

Eric,
Winterbach's To Hell with Cronje sounds like another must-read. I know next to nothing about the Anglo-Boer War. The novel does indeed sound poignant and enlightening. I feel sure that the book mirrors events that are very close to some that truly happened. And I'm also certain that Winterbach, with her gift of expression, conveys a time in history that should not be forgotten.

Do I recall your saying that you would not be able to attend the Fasihi literary festival, or was it only Sunday's events you're unable to go to? It would be wonderful if you could hear Winterbach speak...and
share the details with all of us here!

Cheers,
Titania

 

[kratsy]

I haven't heard of this author, but she looks really interesting. It looks like her novels explore a unique facet of life in South Africa. I will have to check her out sometime.

 

[Eric]

Well, Kratsy, you've heard of her now. She is genuinely interesting, because of her style. As with Virginia Woolf (whom she resembles, slightly!) it is the style, the build-up of the novel that counts. At present, I'm reading one of her novels called "Belemmering" ("Hindrance", or similar) which contains one of her beloved subjects: a group of men, going to a fairly inaccessible place, and their dialogue and reactions there. Whether it's arch?ologists, artists, or soldiers, this group aspect of social interaction interests Winterbach.

Do examine the contrast between the various images of Afrikaners available on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRYAKIcqnk

YouTube - Harry & Paul - South African Pick The Day Out - Episode 5

YouTube - Harry and Paul South African Pik Reading

Both comedian Harry Enfield and novelist Ingrid Winterbach are geniuses in their own way. While the mimicking Brit Enfield shows the more rough-barked rugby-player side of Afrikaners - with an excellent imitation of accent - Ingrid Winterbach shows the elegance and sophistication of their best authors.

 

[e.j.]

Just FYI,

We're publishing Winterbach's TO HELL WITH CRONJ? this summer, and hopefully we'll be publishing THE BOOK OF HAPPENSTANCE sometime next year. Click here for the details.

E.J.
Editor, Open Letter Books

 

[Eric]

E.J., I noticed the fact just a few hours ago, when I was looking at the Open Letter website, as discussed here.

Ingrid Winterbach (aka Lettie Viljoen, pseudonym for some of her earlier novels) is one of the very best authors writing in Afrikaans today. Let me stress that I don't actually know who E.J. is, and that I discovered Winterbach myself some years ago, owing to the fact that I have willingly and knowingly learnt Afrikaans, and read her "Buller se plan" (Buller's Plan), despite all the weird and politically correct attempts by some to only accept Afrikaans writers if they are called Breytenbach or Brink, and have been living on their anti-apartheid record, then turning to the more "acceptable" ex-colonial language English.

What is important about Winterbach is that she has written novels involving the Boer War (called the Anglo-Boer War by South Africans) and has not taken a propagandistically pro-Afrikaner (aka Boer) stance on this huge historical war of trauma, but weaves a tapestry of private life from today and then with military aspects of that war between the imperialist British and the freedom-fighting Afrikaners, back in around 1900.

It may be unpalatable to some, but in Boer War days, it was the British who were the nasty imperialist-colonialist oppressors, and the Afrikaners the ragtag army of guerrilla fighters. The Brits, my compatriots, put some 25,000 Boer women and children in concentration camps, the first time this expression was ever used. Many died. Churchill save Britain from the Nazis in WWII, but he was on the side of the colonialists in the Boer War.

Afrikaans literature has flourished over the past decades, especially the short-story. Nuances are the order of the day. As I am half-English, half-Dutch, I am conveniently cloven regarding loyalties. But when it comes to Afrikaans literature, I am appalled at the ignorance and bigotry of many.

Russian is not still regarded as the language of the Gulag; nor German as the language of the Holocaust. But Afrikaans remains dodgy in the eyes of many who know nothing about its history.

 

[Stiffelio]

Eric, I support your bold defense of the Afrikaans language, victimized by politically stupid double standards.

 

[Eric]

Blimey, someone actually supporting me, Stiffelio. As some of the literatures I take an interest in are often lambasted by the ignorant, I sometimes take a delight in pointing out that the Balts didn't initiate the killing of many of the Jews murdered on their territory, the Poles are not all anti-Semites (in fact, like the Hungarians, quite a few of their authors have Jewish origins some generations back), and the Afrikaners are not all shambok-wielding racists beating their Black slaves to death on remote farms.

With big, visible countries, like Germany and Russia, the murder of millions is soon forgotten, and the pl?iade of literature is left alone. With other countries there are a few mumbles about collaboration as with Hamsun and several French authors, but, for instance, those Socialist Realists sucking up for decades to the Soviet authorities are seemingly not regarded as collaborators - because sucking up to Commies is politically correct, whilst sucking up to Nazis is an abomination. Nor are all Israeli authors fanatically anti-Arab nationalist-Zionists; quite the opposite.

There are several prejudices about countries and their authors that are hard to dissuade bigots from ranting about.

Winterbach is by no means the only Afrikaner writer who has not turned their literature into agit-prop against apartheid (which has gone, though South Africa is still in rather a mess of corruption and apathy). I have read lots of contemporary Afrikaans short-stories, printed from the LitNet website, plus sophisticated poetry by Elisabeth Eybers (who admittedly lived in Holland), Ingrid Jonkers, van Wyk Louw, Opperman, and so on. Riana Scheepers' short-stories demonstrate her mixing with Zulus as a child, also Petra M?ller writes sensitive short-stories, as does Rachelle Greeff. But because these are white-skinned people, the less balanced literary "authorities" keep on obsessively about racism against Blacks. These people fail to realise that their efforts result in the opposite - racism against White authors writing in the wrong language.

As for privilege, it was pretty sickly when, as soon as apartheid ended, a group of Dutch and Flemish writers immediately rushed off to South Africa and stayed in the same luxurious circumstances as they would have done under apartheid. But now that was OK, it had overnight become politically correct to mix with the same bunch of authors, most of whom are white-skinned through no choice of their own.

 

[Mary LA]

Ingrid Winterbach is one of my favourite writers -- her latest novel To Hell with Cronje with its descriptions of the veld had echoes of another brilliant Afrikaans novel, Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat. This latter was translated by Michiel Heyns, but I suspect it is untranslateable because so much of the earth and assonant wordplay cannot be given in English.

Mary

 

[Stephni]

So wonderful to see Ingrid Winterbach mentioned here. This is my favourite Winterbach which I read in Afrikaans. Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat. Rich and detailed - I had beautiful dreams while I read this. There is a strong reverence for the natural world in this work and I would like to write notes when I read this again - hopefully it will activate my imagination again as it did the first time.

I am also busy with her latest book, Die Benederyk (The Underworld) (don't think there is a translation for this yet). It is written in a similar style to The Book of Happenstance but the themes are darker and for some reason harder for me so I am reading it very slowly. This book was reviewed very widely in the Afrikaans media and I think the number of reviews is an indication of how much she is respected. I am curious to read those reviews but will only do so when I've finished the book.

 

[Eric]

Yes, I'm waiting for the recent English translation of a copy of "Niggie" to reach me from America. I hope this subtle take of the Anglo-Boer war (and the geography, geology and plant life of the region) will open the eyes of Americans, and ultimately Brits, to the fact that there is life in Afrikaans literature since Brink & Breytenbach. Now that apartheid is dead, it is time to allow Afrikaans literature back into the kraal of the acceptable. And, what is crucial, show that there is great subtlety in Afrikaans poetry: Eybers, Jonker, Cussons, van Wyk Louw, Opperman, Rousseau, and, no doubt, younger poets I've never heard of. Plus two very contrasting classic poems: "Winternag" by Marais and C.P. Hoogenhout's "Vooruitgang". (Note, regarding the latter poem: I'm writing this in English.)

 

[Stephni]

Yes, I'm waiting for the recent Enlish translation of a copy of "Niggie" to reach me from America.

Is it easier for you to order from America? I am exploring getting hold of Dutch books here - seems like it will be expensive regardless of the supplier I use.

... And, what is crucial, show that there is great subtlety in Afrikaans poetry: Eybers, Jonker, Cussons, van Wyk Louw, Opperman, Rousseau, and, no doubt, younger poets I've never heard of. Plus two very contrasting classic poems: "Winternag" by Marais and C.P. Hoogenhout's "Vooruitgang". (Note, regarding the latter poem: I'm writing this in English.)

Yes unfortunately Hoogenhout is relevant still, perhaps even more so now. I find it very melodramatic though also because I heard this quoted often when I was a child.

For those who can understand Afrikaans:
"Engels! Engels! Alles Engels! Engels wat jy sien en hoor;
In ons skole, in ons kerke word ons moedertaal vermoor." (Die Afrikaanse Patriot, 1880)

(a lament about English as a threat to Afrikaans)

Younger poets you may want to look for are Loftus Marais, Carina Stander, Danie Marais, Ilse van Staden.

Loftus Marais is currently writing a column called 'Kopstukke' for 'Die Burger'/'Die Beeld' (local Afrikaans papers both owned by the same company). He focusses on poetry and I recently realised it is all fiction (or partly fiction?). I can't decide whether I want them to be true or not but I think it has increased my enjoyment of the pieces. I am hoping a publisher will put them into a collection. Here is a link to one about a book club for Elizabeth Eybers and the most recent one about a poet that focusses on poems about herbs.

And while I am handing out links - two mainly Afrikaans websites where you can explore Afrikaans literature (and in the case of the first one also other SA literature)
www.litnet.co.za
www.versindaba.co.za

 

[Eric]

The reason I've just received (yesterday afternoon) the Winterbach novel "To Hell With Cronjé" (the translation of "Niggie") from Yankieland and not South Africa is because it is an American publishing house that has published Elsa Silke's English translation. The Yanks don't have the same hang-ups about the [Anglo-] Boer War as do the Brits. As a half-Dutch Englishman who has never been to South Africa, I will try to be even-handed about the novel when I get round to reviewing it. It is, in any case, more poetic and social than political. If you review a novel in a serious online or print publication, the publishing house usually sends you a free copy of the book, as most reviews for smaller publications are unpaid, and the publishing house wants to thank the reviewer for drawing attention to the book.

By the way, because of the craziness of bulk posting, although the book was sent from New York State in the USA to Sweden in Europe, it was postmarked in New Zealand (!), which doesn't strike me as the quickest route (over the North Pole is quicker).

*

The lines of the Hoogenhout that Stephni quotes are the very ones that are given in the excerpt in my Groot Verseboek, a yellow-covered publication that has gone through several editions.

I shall look out for those younger poets. I do look at LitNet occasionally, and printed out and read quite a few short-stories by younger writer, a couple of years ago. I met editor and novelist Etienne van Heerden once in Amsterdam.

Marais seems to be a popular name (how do you pronounce it?): Sarie, Danie and Loftus. I enjoyed what must be a pisstake about the Eybers reading club of trannies.

 

[Stephni]

Marais seems to be a popular name (how do you pronounce it?): Sarie, Danie and Loftus.

[mɑrɛː] It is common enough that the two poets are not related as far as I know. French Huguenot ancestry. Also writer & naturalist Eugene Marais who you've mentioned previously.

 

[Eric]

You may note that Open Letter Books in New York State are bringing out the Happenstance book as well as the Cronjé one as one of their recent publications:

http://catalog.openletterbooks.org/authors/20

So now two books by Ingrid Winterbach are available in the USA.