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Books Column: How you are missing out on the literary revolution in your backyard

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Ben Williams is the publisher of The Johannesburg Review of Books.

Here’s what’s been happening in the literary world while you were sleeping. Right in front of you.

Dear Reader,

There’s something that you may not be aware of. It’s important that you pay attention. You need to know about this. Odds are, you’re missing out.

You love books, right? When a book first turned you on to its wondrous beauty and power, that was a life-changing moment for you. Say, One Hundred Years of Solitude, or The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Great books.

Ditch them. Give them away. Donate them to a library or something.

Because if you don’t, and you stay in your current lane, the moment is going to pass you by. I know all about this lane. Its lines were painted by a literary work crew from London or New York. It’s crowded. New stuff – astonishing debuts from here to kingdom come. Established stuff – gushed-over third and fourth novels whose streets are littered with used heroin needles and predatory priests. And so on.

Get out of that lane. There are some fantastic books there, but get out.

Did you know that Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s second book is already here? Her second one. Everyone’s still talking about the first!

Stay with me, here. Back in the Seventies, everyone was talking about an incredible book that broke the scene wide open for an entire generation of writers, who came from places that you’d never considered before. Lima. Buenos Aires. Santiago. The writer of this particular book, Márquez, was from Colombia, himself, but he wrote in Mexico City. He didn’t start the revolution – it had been shivering up and down Latin America’s spine for years – but he ended up as its flag bearer. One Hundred Years of Solitude, that book you just gave to the charity shop? It launched an armada’s worth of literary careers.

The same thing with an Eastern European writer in the Eighties, Kundera. He somehow lifted a fold of the Iron Curtain and shoved The Unbearable Lightness of Being that book you just lent to your neighbour – under it, into the cool, quenching air of the West. The first book is all it takes. Then, in a couple of years, you find yourself gabbing about writers from Sarajevo, Krakow, Bucharest and, yes, Prague, where Kundera got started. How did that happen?

Just one book. In the Fifties everyone thought it might happen with Things Fall Apart. But it didn’t. Not quite.

It’s happening now, though. Right in your backyard, South Africa, it’s happening. The revolution is upon us, the world is going crazy. It’s so exciting!

But I don’t think you’ve noticed. So let me spell it out for you. These things run for a bit more than a decade, usually. The world lifts a continent on to its shoulders and celebrates every last scrap of publishing that drifts down with the fireworks. The revolution drives itself to impossible, Kilimanjaro-like heights of production. Hundreds, thousands of books appear from places you’d never thought twice about, when it came to furnishing your bookshelves. Kampala, Accra, Kigali, Kinshasa, Yaoundé, Abuja, Lagos, Harare, Windhoek. For that matter, Tshwane, Joburg, Mbombela, Durban, Cape Town. It kicked off in 2007, but started gaining real speed around 2013, which means there are a good four or five years left of it, at least. Like the other revolutions, it started with one book. Do I really have to say which one? Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. An early omen, that book.

Next time I run into you, let’s chat about the new Makumbi, though. Or maybe that Adébáyọ̀ book from two years back. That’s a special book. Because you’re going to take yourself off to the parade, now you know it’s happening, right? You’re not going to be that sad fool who sits at home waffling while the rest of the world stampedes around places like Lusaka and Dar es Salaam in search of the next great literary carnival ride.

Right?

(And when Jennifer Makumbi or Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ stops by South Africa again – too late, if you missed them the first time – you’re going to go meet them, right?)

Don’t screw it up. You’re in a very privileged position. You can be part of something big. It’s happening now, just look out the window for heaven’s sake. And one day it will all be gone, and the world will only remember Adichie. She’ll still be there, with Márquez and Kundera.

Do you really want to miss out? No, of course you don’t. Go get your tickets. I’ve just told you where to start.

Your pal,

Ben 

DM

Ben Williams is the publisher of The Johannesburg Review of Books. Previously, he was the literary editor of the Sunday Timesand the General Manager for Marketing at Exclusive Books.

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