Prospero se skiereiland

Deur Roon Lewald

(Scroll down for an English Translation)

1. This isle is full of noises…

Jy wonder soms watter skalkse geeste
hierdie skraal vinger land geskep,
van die hand van Afrika geskei het
deur die hoe kneukels van sy berge

en geplaas het tussen wêreldmere
wat hier kop-aan-kop baklei oor
die besit van dié besondre plek,

waar hul wisselstryd van wind en weer
sy see- and bergtonele telkemaal vertower
en besiel met sy unieke plant- en dierelewe.

On Afrikaans

There is, for me, something remarkable about well-crafted Afrikaans prose. Her words are fertile; a faithful translation into English will often demand of a translator three words for each pregnant Afrikaans word. She remains, for this writer, a language that at once embraces and estranges her readers, for she is essentially tribal.

Any engelsprekende that has ever ventured into a conversation in Afrikaans with Afrikaners might know what I’m trying to place my finger on: his toungue immediately betrays him as an outsider; there is an awkward moment of sheer horror when conversation halts — and resumes — in English. There is little to no middle ground for those who speak Afrikaans as a second, third or foreign language. Our battered vocabulary and slaughtered syntax betray us immediately for the buitelanders that we are. It is our shiboleth.

Leipoldt: The Universal Afrikaner

by Roon Lewald

Louis Leipoldt

In one of my latest visits to the blog of an American friend, I was intrigued by a sensitive description of her visit to the remote grave of Afrikaans poet C. Louis Leipoldt, sheltered by an overhanging ledge of sandstone at Pakhuis (Storehouse) Pass in the rugged Cedarberg mountains some 200 miles north of Cape Town.

Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt (1880-1947) is revered by Africa’s only white tribe as one of its finest poets. He was a leading luminary of the “Second Movement”, the generation of language pioneers which produced the first poems of genuine literary value in Afrikaans immediately after the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War. His name is hardly known outside an estimated 10 million or so native speakers spread over South Africa and the now rapidly expanding diaspora of Afrikaner emigrants to the USA, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere. But blog hostess Jenny Bennett has such wide interests that I wasn’t too surprised by her tribute to such an exotic poet.

Inyoni

In memory of my sister, Deanne Seneschal Raszat, née Lewald, born 31 Jan. 1940 in Durban, South Africa; died 26 Sept. 1996 in Leimen-Gauangelloch, Germany

By Roon Lewald

Deanne

After cancer won a five-year battle for my elder sister’s life, my brother-in-law sent me a parcel of old studio recordings of Deanne’s singing recitals made by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC/SAUK) between 1953 and 1958. Apart from a pile of yellowed newspaper clips and eistedfodd certificates, they were all that remained of the years when my mother’s coaching of Deanne’s voice propelled her into brief local prominence as a promising young singer. My dutiful elder sister had already been slaving away at her piano lessons for nearly five years when, at the age of 10, our Ma yoked her girlish lyrical soprano too into the musical harness of our parents, both of them singing teachers. At the age of 13, she piped German Lieder and Afrikaans liedjies into an SABC mike for the first time and was introduced on the nationwide “Young South Africa” programme as a young singer with a great future.

Time for Sowing

By Roon Lewald

Funeral Dirt

It’s the first of the four Advent Sundays, when folks here in Germany light the first of four candles on their Advent fir-branch wreaths and get into the pre-Christmas spirit. Even agnostics can’t help reflecting on the meaning of it all on a quiet Sunday evening when Christmas-minded people take a short break from their gift-shopping labours before plunging back into the seasonal shopping rush again on Monday (illuminations are already up and Christmas markets are booming in the city centers, and reports say Germans are spending this year as if we weren’t heading for a long recession). With the terror bombings in Moombai vying with the global economic crisis for attention, the news is so depressing nowadays it’s hard to believe that there’s any room left in the world for the human love, friendship and compassion we hear so much about at Christmastime. I can only draw comfort from the knowledge that many people like myself are at least linked to other individuals by such bonds.

In this mood, I was reminded of a short story by a South African author named Charles Bosman.

Die Van Pletsen Saga

In English

Klik vir genealogie

Hier volg nou die “Van Pletsen” saga wat ek belowe het om neer to skrywe voordat ek tjêns word en niks meer kan onthou nie. Ek kan nie waarborg dat al die féite, datums, ens., juis is nie, want wat ek hier skryf is gebaseer op hoorsê – op wat pa en ma, oupa en ouma en ou tantes en ooms vertel het! Volgens my oom Jan Sauer van Pletsen (wat joernalistiese neigings gehad het en ʼn paar boeke die lig laat sien het) het ene Carl Johannes von Plessen, gebore 1795 in Oos Pruise, daar moelikheid gehad het met die owerhede en toe die land verlaat en hom gevestig in Brabant, België.

(Oupa se suster, Tant Mart Vorster, het graag gespog met die feit dat ons Van Pletsens oorspronklik Von Plessens was en dus tot die aristokrasie behoort het en dan het my pa se broer, die stuitlike oom Kootjie, haar altyd gedemp met die woorde: “Ag, wat, Ta’ Mart, die ou swernoter was seker ʼn ou perdedief. Dis die dat hy daar out Oos Pruise moes padgee het!”) In Brabant het hy huursoldaat geword en as sulks onder Napoleon gaan veg.

Na die slag van Waterloo het hy en ʼn Havenga (seker ʼn voorstaat van Klasie Havenga) as verstekelinge op ʼn skip hier aangekom in 1820. Dit blyk dat hy in Graaf Reinet te lande gekom het waar hy getroud is met ʼn Anna Sauer (gebore 1805) wie se vader, Johan Nicholas Sauer, uit Keulen in Duitsland gekom het en onderwyser in Graaf Reinet geword het.

The Van Pletsen Saga

by Helen Lewald (nee Van Pletsen)

Translated by Blane van Pletzen-Rands

(Klik vir Afrikaans)

(Click for Genealogy)

Here follows The van Pletsen Saga , which I have promised to write down before I become senile and can’t remember anything. I cannot guarantee that all the facts, dates, etc., are accurate, because what I am writing is based on hearsay on what father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and old aunts and uncles have told me!

According to my uncle Sauer van Pletsen (who had journalistic leanings and allowed a few books to see the light of day), one, Carl Johannes von Plessen, born 1795 in East Prussia, ran into difficulty with the authorities and left that land and established himself in Brabant, Belgium. (Grandfather’s sister, Aunt Mart Vorster, boasted the fact that we Van Pletsens were originally Von Plessens and, therefore, belonged to the German aristocracy and then my father’s brother, the stately childishly absurd uncle Kootjie, always deflated her with these words: “Oh well, Auntie Mart. The old rascal was probably a horse thief. That’s why he had to get out of East Prussia!”)

Die Nag van die Vlieënde Miere

Deur ‘n onbekende skrywer

In English

“Ons het selfs tot aan die uur van ons dood die illusie dat ons onsself ken, wéét wat ons wíl…”

Inleiding

deur Roon Lewald

Hieronder verskyn die oorspronklike Afrikaanse manuskrip van die kortverhaal Die Nag van die Vlieënde Miere, waarvan my noodgewonge eienmagtige Engelse vertaling elders op hierdie blog verskyn. Ek wens dat die onbekende skrywer van hierdie pakkende, heel toevallig deur my tussen my oorlede suster Deanne Lewald se besittinge na haar dood gevonde storie daarvan te hore sal kom en sy eie kommentaar sal lewer daaroor. Intussen wens ek hom geluk met sy raak siening van intellektuele Afrikanerdom se sielewroeginge op die drumpel van rewolusionêre veranderinge in die ontstuimige 1980er jare. Hierdie laat publikasie daarvan, seker goed 20 jaar na die verhaal se ontstaan, is m.i. ‘n déja vu wat vandag nog – of miskien weer – groot aktualiteit besit. Sekerlik sou lesers graag meer wil weet oor die tyd en omstandighede van die verhaal se ontstaan, hoe die outeur vandag dink oor die werklikheid van die ou bedeling se destyds al onvermydelike einde, en hoe hy die huidige asook toekomstige rol en toestand van die Afrikaner en sy taal in (of buite) Suid-Afrika sien.

Amanzimtoti

deur Roon Lewald

‘n Vreemde oom haal vir sy trossie kinders
kwiksilwer vissies uit ‘n rotspoel.
Hy gee my wraggies ene!
Dis my eie, eie kreatuurtjie wat nou
spartel in ‘n blik
- so wonderlik
dat ek hom altyd-altyd wil behou,
al roer die diertjie binnekort nie meer
as jy hom met ‘n stokkie por.

Met die huistoe-ry, sat van my gesoebat
om hom saam te neem,
vou Ma hom toe in ‘n koerant, en bêre hom
vêr agter in die bak van Wilhelmina,
ons oerou, waardige swart Oldsmobile.

Tuis, as die frommelpakkie
onder al die stranddag-rommel
uit Willemien se songebraaide bak
uitgehaal word, daal daar neer op my
‘n groot Besef, oud soos Adam se geslag:
Siedaar, o mens,
hoe vlietend is al aardse prag!

Want die pakkie ruik so sleg! -
en waar’s my towerdiertjie dan?
Hierdie nare ding is mos
net ‘n stywe, dooie vis!

Durban 1947

By Roon Lewald

1947 was a good time to be a white five-year-old in Durban. The beaches offered halcyon days beside the Indian Ocean. The Durban July turned the town into an exciting tourist mecca. The Bioscope was still the gateway to Hollywood’s dream factory of the world. In that stronghold of English speakers, blimpish super-patriots of Empire basked in the last rays of the setting Empire, and the 1947 Royal Visit whipped monarchist enthusiasms to fever pitch. “Our magnificent Zulu” were complacently thought to be quite content with white overlordship, and one of the few blots on white horizons was the rapid encroachment of increasingly prosperous Indian merchants on previously all-white shopping and residential areas.