Author Devarakshanam Betty Govinden's latest literary offering entitled A Time of Memory will give the reader a new respect for remembering the apartheid era.
It is a collection of essays on Durban writers, including authors Aziz Hassim, Imraan Coovadia and Sita Gandhi.
There are two further chapters, one on Zuleikha Mayat's memoirs set in Potchefstroom, and the other an autobiography by South African Chinese author Darryl Accone.
In the preface, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote: "The writers tell of the divisions of apartheid, of violations of various kinds. But they tell of triumphs too. They tell of the way apartheid did not, and could not, conquer the hearts and souls of our people."
Govinden said it was necessary to write a book on apartheid because "working with these writers gave me an opportunity to learn more about our South African history. My awareness of our different and common experiences of our wonderful cultural mosaic was increased and sharpened".
When she first read Accone's book, All Under Heaven – The Story of a Chinese Family in South Africa, she realised it opened a world that had been hidden from her.
"It was informative and compelling. I changed from being a casual to an engaged reader. It became a way for me to explore and develop my own thinking. It was the same with Imraan's first novel, The Wedding, which I tried to make sense of for myself."
Govinden researched her book using historical material and her knowledge of other local and international authors.
She has also drawn inspiration from some of the work of urban planning and development writers and historians. These include academics such as Brij Maharaj, Vishnu Padayachee and Paul Maylam. She gathered literature on Cape Town and Johannesburg, which she then used for comparative analysis. Referring to the book Undressing Durban, Govinden noted that, in some ways, the writers in her book were also "undressing" Durban.
"It gives us a perspective of the city that is often hidden from our view – Aziz Hassim does this, for example, in The Lotus People."
Her interest is specifically directed at writers, who have not necessarily enjoyed widespread exposure. She also wished to bring the writing of female authors to the fore. The women in this collection, Sita Gandhi, the daughter of Manilal Gandhi, and Zuleikha Mayat, for example, wrote of the domestic and private spaces in which they had lived.
"There is much written on Mahatma Gandhi, but a grand-daughter's memoir, simple and short and incomplete at that, has infinite value of a different kind."
She felt these books were to be valued for their narratives of living under apartheid and record of social and cultural histories. They deal with personal histories that are unknown or ignored.
"These books are contributing to our understanding of all our histories, and implicitly makes us value what we had ignored before.
"This is why my book is entitled A Time of Memory.
"Memory and remembering in South Africa and the rest of the world are being valued now as an important part of healing the past, of re-writing the past, especially a past that was traumatised by history."
First published in The Post.
