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South African writer, Nadia Davids, says her latest play, Hold Still, first came to her when she was living in London in 2015: ‘There was a constant stream of horrific news stories depicting families fleeing their homes.
The pleasure of reading was a core part of my journey to becoming a writer, but I believe my family and community—a world full of wonderful storytellers as well as code and language switchers—shaped my gravitation toward theatre.
In my opinion, the first draft of a play should be written over a short period, to maintain the intensity which is necessary for the form.
I have always been surprised and deeply gratified at how diverse my audiences are. It is quite rare in South Africa to look out and see a racially and culturally diverse gathering that is also intergenerational.
I am much more concerned with structures of feeling, with processes of mourning what was lost under and through Apartheid brutality, with the grief that surrounds those histories and the political optimism that sustained those who fought for freedom.
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About the Author
is a South African playwright and author. Her plays (At Her Feet, What Remains, Hold Still) have been staged throughout Southern Africa and in Europe. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Astra Magazine, The Georgia Review, The Johannesburg Review of Books and Zyzzyva Magazine. Her short story, Bridling is a 2024 Caine Prize finalist.
Nigerian novelist, poet and author of Graceland, Chris Abani, does not believe ‘Nigerian literature’ exists as a category: ‘It is a common misconception that there is a fixed category that can be read as essentially “Nigerian literature”. Nigeria has 500 nations, 500 languages and about 2,000 dialects. While culture and language can overlap, the level of diversity is such that Nigerian literature cannot be easily narrowed down.’
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
Nigerian poet, novelist and author of Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, Ben Okri, argues that Nigerian literature doesn’t always have to be about Nigeria: ‘Nigerian literature limits itself to Nigeria and then limits even the ways in which the country can be written about. What we want is a vast literature, a great literature…that speaks to all humanity.’
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