(Professor Lindy
Stiebel, courtesy of Facebook)
The next programme in the Mondays at 6 at St Clements will take place on June 2 at 18h00.
One might follow the route a fictional character charts in a novel, visit particular settings from a story, or track down the haunts of a novelist. We will trail along with Stiebel as she shares the whys and wherefores of this, her passion project. A perfect one in the context of Durban being a UNESCO City of Literature.
Literary trails tourism in KZN
KwaZulu-Natal is culturally rich with a wide range of
writers, writing mainly in English and isiZulu, linked to “place” through their
lives and their writing. To name a few: Alan Paton, Roy Campbell, Lewis Nkosi,
Sita Gandhi, Wilbur Smith, Daphne Rooke and Gcina Mhlophe.
“Literary trails are a way to get people ‘walking and talking’ about books,” says Stiebel. “How better to understand a writer than to know about the places they are linked to?” For example, who, she asks, after reading the lyrical opening sentences of Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) has not wanted to see this scene?
“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.
These hills are
grass-covered and rolling,
and they are lovely
beyond any singing of it.”
Eight trails have been devised by the research project KZN Literary Tourism, which has been running for nearly 20 years. Stiebel (with Niall McNulty) is the author of A Literary Companion to KwaZulu-Natal (UKZNPress 2017), which she will use as a point of reference for her discussion on the literary trails, their development, the authors, and reflections on historic and contemporary identities in a changing cultural and political landscape, among other things.
Perhaps we will hear about readers who go on literary trails as a pilgrimage to pay homage to authors they have read and admired. Maybe by the end of the evening, we will be inspired to do this ourselves. There will be time for questions.
Lindy Stiebel is Professor Emerita of English Studies at UKZN. She says her research interests are linked by a profound interest in the relationship between writers and place. These include the South African colonial and post-colonial novel; the artist and mapper Thomas Baines; Indian Ocean studies, particularly literary interconnections between South Africa, India and Mauritius; and literary tourism.
For more than 20 years Stiebel has led the research project KZN Literary Tourism (see www.literarytourism.co.za), which has developed a website hosting over 170 author entries, various documentary films on selected writers, the eight trails, and book reviews/news of books linked to KZN. Stiebel’s latest books are Cities in Flux: Metropolitan Spaces in South African Literary and Visual Texts (with Alan Muller, Olivier Moreillon. Zurich: LITVerlag (2017) and A Literary Guide to KwaZulu-Natal. She recently self-published a book on grief.
On sale: Books.
Giveaways: Trail handouts, KZN Literary Tourism magnetic
bookmarks.
\uD83D\uDCB0 When the donation box is passed around, we
suggest a minimum of R50 per person.
Weather permitting, the presentation will take place outdoors.
Bookings limited to diners in support of St Clements restaurant and staff. (They stay open specially for us.)
Table Bookings Essential: RSVP St Clements 031 202 2511
Be there in time to order before the performance, scheduled
to start at 18h00
Please cancel if you book then can’t make it. (The venue is often at capacity)