The New Interpreters?

By Paul Lothane


Books, specifically works of fiction, have their special allure and
can be forever. For example when millions of people worldwide think of
Mark Twain, their minds immediately go to his work, Huckleberry Finn.

In Africa here a book doesn’t come more popular than Achebe's Things
fall apart. Tsitsi’s Nervous Conditions seems to have assumed a life
of its own too. Such is the attraction, and importance of works of
fiction.

Many a time as readers, a book reminds one of of others, whether in reality there are links or not. Reading this new book, A series of undesirable events, my mind kept on going to Wole Soyinka s novel, The interpreters. In this wonderful work, Soyinka creates a group of young artists and
intellectuals.

They include Egbo, the young aristocrat, Sekoni, the engineer turned sculpture Sagoe the journalist, Bamidele the lawyer, Kola the art teacher, etc. Their intellect lights up this book.

In Skade’s new book, we also have a group of such people - Tumi, the lawyer, Tshitso, the photographer, Sechaba, a popular fine artist, Moshe, Kgotso the
graphic artist...

Not to forget the ill-fated lady, Pulane. “Pulane had not followed through on her high school dream of becoming a doctor. Her fear of blood was too all consuming for her to continue along that path. She changed to working with charity organizations after her Communication Science honours degree,"

So here we have a group of intelligent well educated people, no doubt initially very confident and happy before things begin to fall apart. That art is very important to them is clear enough, eg Thabo and his passion for jazz.

I feel the following passage says it all:

“Art has always been a critical aspect in resistance movements wherever there has been oppression, where the masses had been deprived of dignity and subjugated and killed, art was their lifeblood - a restoration of their spirits. Art shouts the loudest. The law was often inspired to change through art. “ (Page 79.)

This work is an impressive, skilful debut. Just like in The Interpreters, there is a lot of despair and unhappy episodes. In Deon Simphiwe Skade's A series of Undesirable Events it does seem too contrived and unrealistic.