We recently received a fascinating email (below) from Zulu poet and scholar Mduduzi Dlamini highlighting Clermont as a literary area we have overlooked.
If you feel there are other areas and writers that should be included on our website, send us an email and we’ll gladly add them.
I notice that you have areas of interest that has literary bases. One area as such that is abundantly blessed in this is Clermont, a landholding former Catholic mission west of Durban, bordering Westville on the east, New Germany on north-west, and Wynberg on the west. Perhaps because of its transitory nature housing many a migrant tennant Clermont disproportionately receives locations in literary works and manyfamous Zulu authors eithyer at stage of their lived there in transition, such as the fabled novelist Kenneth Bhengu, or were simply land-onwers there living there, of which are many and used Clermont as a location of their places.
Moses Ngcobo from Ndunduma, went on to study at Wits for psychology and English, wrote one of the finest naturalistic Zulu novel titled Inkungu MaZulu [Here’s The Fog, Zulus] , out of print and only available at Killie Campbell’s Library in original 1940 delectable dust ocver jacket. He wrote four other novels, two of which are the finest and ranks him as one of the greatest novelists in a galaxy. Ukufika Kosuka [The coming of The Day] is a historical interpretative novel dealing with 1856 Xhosa tragedy of cattle killing. Qhude Manikiniki, an untranlatable Zulu phrase from, but a closer English rendtion, [Two Bulls] [trnasliteration: Gnashing Cocks], a historical novel on pre-Shakan power Sun King Inkosi Zwide.
But Innkungu Mazulu, his debut novel, is no doubt his magnum opus running at some 300 pages with psychological acumen on figures on local politics – what transforms a revered figure of integrity into a duplicitous, cowardly and fraud-prone warlord. It’s focused on Clermont and gives an unflinching account of how Clermont was built, giving background of the first coming of Zulus into this area. The fog in the title is as menacing as apartheid was to be in later years as the main protagonist waits for the fog to engulf Clermont before he strikes. Clermont at this time is presented as foggy as Dickens’ London, with Ngcobo dwelling on giving an account of how Clermont used to be engulfed by terrifying rains and fogs, but this natural account leans him towards Zola, though the fog is famous in Midlands from Richmond to Greytown.
* Zondi, dramatist who revolutionised Zulu drama with publication of Insumansumane [ Fables] in 1940 under the famous Wits University Press imprint. He lived in and died in Clermont saome three years ago. He owned a famous retail shop in Fannin, who’s palce is still refered to by the name of the shops – Pholas, a place where you rest. He is survived by a family that still lives there and runs the shop, He was a prominent person in Clermont life.
* JC Dlamini, the greatest poet up there with BW Vilakazi, who published five volumes of poetry lived and died in Clermont, though he was originally from Edendale, Pietermaritzburg. He died in 1997 and was survived by his wife in their lovely house in Ndunduma, near Sibusisiwe. He ws the first Zulu poet whoe works were banned in a 1936 anthology were he published two poems highly challenging and difficult intellectually, very subversive of the politics. He remained a difficult poet mostly enjoyed by the Zulu elite. I’ll furnish his title some time later as I’m recalling on all this from memory.
*Ndelu ka Nonkamfela, probably the most colourfully flamboyant personality in Zulu literature – HIE Dhlomo is the finest aesthete South Africa has ever known buut he wrote in English. Nonkamfela, as he was known and remians o up till this day, owned property and business in Clermont Central, to the side of Ndunduma as you enter Clermont, and visited schools – he came to my school Sithengile Secondary School, now Combined Senior Seconday, in 1985 at the height of urban unrest and rebellion which Sithengile, a newly-opened school, was at the forefront of leading Clermont in civil disobedience. I was thrilled when he addressed us as back then I already knew that I wanted to be a writer. With sun-burnt dreadloncks, a receding hairline revealing a massive forehead, a broad smile and intelligent discussion, he was simply brilliant. He died some few years ago – 1996. He lived about two four house away from the poet Dlamini. He was a dramatist.
*Kenneth Bhengu, known as the sage of Ndwendwe, lived for a while in Clermont. That is evident in one of his novels thta details the depraved, decadent lifestyle of Clermont. He also had lived in Cato Manor as as many as three of his novels details the crooked characters living in that decadent place. He also worked as gardner or lived in servant’s quarters off Mngeni Rd up in Morningside as he details in one of his numerous novels – he is certainly the most prolific of Zulu authors thus far writing up to some 18 novels and novellas plus an unfinished autobiography. he also lived in Dlangezwa, Ongoye, and chart thse places in his novels as he does Johannesburg when he came up here. He charts the Midlands both Mswati (New Hannover) and Mngungundlovana (Greytown) in one of his best naturalistic novels of swindler. who cons life insurance. He remians the most idiomatic of Zulu writers who was enamoured with Zulu Shakan history and military glory so much so that in his fantastic novels he presages the Magic Realism vogue by some decades.
*SS Kubheka
But your site can not do without mentioning indisputably the strongest, if not the greatest, Zulu novelsit SS Kubheka who may share that accolade with Ngcobo. But he lived his adult productive life in Umlazi, a sprawling township that is the pride of every black Durbanite, but surprisingly with little appearance or contribution in literature. Kubheka, wrote what I consider to be the ultimate tragic Zulu novels Kungavuka abaNguni [The Dead Would Rather Rise] but on its first page the English rendition is the trite (Over My Dead Body); and Ulaka lwabaNguni [The Wrath of The Ancestors], despite a similar word in title these are utterly difffernt from each other, that is, no sequel here. I have found nothing to surpass Ulaka lwabaNguni in sheer power, beauty of lyrical langauge, and psychological acumen in analysing from a humanistic view race relations on farms between Boers and Zulus in apartheid South Africa. Of the languages that I can read inthe country, that is English & Xhosa as well, there is simply nothing of this magnificence. It is quiet, marble beauty. The only book that comes to it is a little unknown great Zulu novel published in 1940 Unkosibomvu, but this novel has expositionary power rather than lyrical power. (As a critic, I’m the only critic who has cited or discoverd this work in a literary criticism spanning almost 80 years: it has never been cited in any published bibliography – I discovered it at the Killie Campbell’s.) Kubheka’s lyrical power and brilliance is akin to that of nineteenth century Russian novelsit Dostoeyvsky. Ulaka starts off from Ladysmith down to Clermont, Inanda, Ulundi, back to Ladysmith, and eventually the tragedy strikes at Durban’s famous hospital King Edward VIII Hospital & Clermont. It’s span is panoramic. His debut novel Kungavuka begins in Clermont, a landowner and businessman, who, however, lives outside of Clermont as many landlord did in the north coast in Umvoti, (Vilakazi’s & ANC President Nobel Laureatte Inkosi Albert Luthuli’s birth palce) but the final scen of tragedy happens in Kwa-Dukuza (Stanger) where the young daughter of the main protagonist works as a nurse who flings herself to an oncoming car in a final act of rejectinh her father’s insistence on that she chooses a suitor from well-groomed backgrouns rather than the mahlalale, the unemployed, she has chosen. Kungavuka has no lyrical rendition, but the power of storytelling is taut, spartan, and highly-strung. It is a superb debut taht only for the tragic theme it had no other subsequent recognisable Kubheka stylistic keys. But Kubheka also wrote a third novel titled Umthathe uzala umlotha [The Oak Tree Bequeths Ashes], but his undoubted powerful lyricism overcame him and when one reads the book one feels that Kubheka was simply concerned with displaying his ability at lyrical langauge. The novel is so musical that whenever I read it I’m reminded of the criticism levelled at Joseph Conrad’s one novel that it sounded as a "chamber orchestra". Umthathe focuses on undergraduates in Forte Hare, Eastern Cape. Kubheka was the school principal of the famous Umlazi high school Vukuzakhe. He died in 2003.
