Virtually Yours #09
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
A series of online discussions – Virtual Gatherings - with honoured author, Zukiswa Wanner, through which she explores contemporary African literature with authors.
The History of Man
Emil Coetzee, a civil servant in his fifties, is washing blood off his hands when the ceasefire is announced.
Like everyone else, he feels unmoored by the end of the conflict. War had given him his sense of purpose, his identity.
But why has Emil’s life turned out so different from his parents’, who spent cheery Friday evenings flapping and flailing the Charleston or dancing the foxtrot? What happened to the Emil who used to wade through the singing elephant grass of the savannah, losing himself in it?
Prize-winning novelist Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu traces Emil’s life from boyhood to manhood – from his days at a privileged boarding school with the motto ‘It is here that boys become the men of history’, to his falling in love with the ever-elusive Marion, whose free-spirited nature has dire consequences for his heart – all the while showing how Emil becomes a man apart.
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
is a writer, filmmaker and academic who holds a PhD from Stanford University, as well as master’s degrees in African Studies and Film. She has published research on Saartjie Baartman and she wrote, directed and edited the award-winning short film Graffiti. Born in Zimbabwe, she currently lives and works in Johannesburg. The Theory of Flight is her first novel.
If you missed the broadcast, you can watch the recording here:
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the recording we had technical problems at the >>> Virtually Yours 09.
