REVELATIONS novel by South African National Poet Laureate

Professor Mongane Wally Serote pic by African News Agency 

This is rather a difficult task and one of the first attempts to review a book for my blog, especially of a national Poet Laureate, Professor Mongane Wally Serote. I first came across his work when I was in high school through his poem called City Johannesburg. I loved this poem so much that I plagiarized it, I did with it as I pleased. Replaced Johannesburg with Phomolong which was the name of my high school. I was incredibly proud of myself. I was excited and I showed this poem together with others I wrote to my English teacher Mr. Dan Marolen. From reading just first line, Mr. Marolen remarked 'Chepape this is not your poem but that of Professor Mongane Wally Serote. I am glad he influenced you to attempt writing poetry." 

Later after high school when I moved to Johannesburg to study art, I then encountered Professor Serote through interviews he conducted that were screened at Johannesburg Art Gallery where Thami Mnyele's retrospective exhibition was mounted. Years later I met him in person where he gave us a public lecture at the Johannesburg City Library where he was invited by Johannesburg Central Library Book Club executive (2014). 

Chepape Makgato with the National Poet Laureate Professor Mongane Wally Serote at the Johannesburg City Library in 2014.

As punctuated by one of the South Africa's renowned writers, political activists and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature Nadine Gordimer, 'Serote is arguably the most important poet of the apartheid era.' This novel REVELATIONS attests to this implication line of reasoning. Serote in this 2010 offering journeys us through turbulences of pre-aparthied, apartheid and post apartheid years using his comrades, family, friends and Bra Shope who is a painter to narrate this beautiful story. 

This skillfully written novel is deeply educational on nature of politics in South Africa, school of thoughts on racism, vast currency on cultural and religious institutions and African indigenous knowledge systems. We meet Otsile, the protagonist alongside his artist friend and mentor Bra Shope on their visit to one of the Africa's best painters and sculptors Dambuza at his home in Maputo. They are in Maputo for an art exhibition of Bra Shope's paintings. 

On this trip which was the beginning of their friendship, Bra Shope detailed to Otsile how he had left his ex-wife Tembile. His explanation is lyrical and poetic as he explained that he left their home more than a dozen times before they parted forever. If a person could give themselves to another, he said, he felt he'd done so: he'd given his body, his spirit and his mind, whatever their worth, to Tembile. 

As the story unfolds, we learn that Otsile is a former MK soldier (uMkhonto we Sizwe which was the armed wing of the African National Congress, co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre). Now turned a committed photographer and he is grappling with his second marriage, aging parents, concept of reconciliation and the notion of new democratic South Africa, indigenous knowledge systems with special focus on African spirituality and Christianity. 

Like a calm African philosopher open to other conflicting ideas and concepts, Serote does not bash Christianity in favor of his beliefs in BoNgaka but rather he suggests the marriage or merging of the two systems. 'In a sense,' Otsile says in the story 'we have only each other to talk to, on earth even afterwards. Archbishop Tutu in his robes should talk to Ngaka in his regalia. What would they say to each other? Come and see my cathedral; come and see my rondavel. That's a crossover, an mpande, for we speak to Jesus in the church and to ancestors in the indumba. I hope then that the archbishop wouldn't then ask, "What are ancestors?" I hope he'd just listen. Ngaka could then sometimes ask the ancestors to talk to Jesus or God, as Tutu could ask the saints and angels to talk to God.'

No doubt that this novel is resplendent of rich dialogue. Whether Otsile is talking to Bra Shope, Ngaka, Dikeledi, his wife Teresa, his uncle Kgathi, his parents or grandparents and everyone. Otsile expresses his curiosity in his questions and eludes wisdom in his statements. His constant visits to Villiers where Ngaka (Afrikan healer) stays and a visit to his uncle Tolo are a catalytic gateway into understanding the African religious and cultural beliefs system. Observing his uncle, Otsile said: 'Something in the way he sat - leaning forward on a chair he himself had made out of wood and hide and sinew from the leather of his cattle, all from the soil of this land - something in his old face told me that nothing could ever shake his faith. Only death could remove it from his eyes.'

Greatest perhaps in its synthesis of these elements into paradoxical structure that lets Serote sing of flesh yet be freed from its limitations, REVELATIONS prepares the way for the whole group of comments on the passionate African as a symbol for the tyranny of time for sick with desire, his at-last-comprehending heart is ironically fastened to restoring the dying culture that the society has become. Serote here carefully, like a matured thinker, poet, philosopher and elder, echoes the forgotten or neglected story of a nation to be revisited, suggesting that we carry with ourselves wisdom and preparedness for action when we make a visit. 

I really enjoyed this book as it allows for introspection of Africans and Western spirituality. I love the way he weaved words in his storytelling. The dialogue is invigoratingly inviting, though it may be felt scattered or weaved in patches. The ending has rather left me hanging as I expected to see the relationship between Lindiwe and Teresa in one house as a family with Otsile the husband. 

The novel REVELATIONS was first published by Jacana Media in 2010.

You can purchase a copy of this novel here https://www.loot.co.za/product/mongane-wally-serote-revelations/lvfg-1159-g870 

More Writings by Professor Mongane Wally Serote 

Poetry

• Yakhal'inkomo (1972)
• Tsetlo (1974)
• No Baby Must Weep (1975)
• Behold Mama, Flowers (1978)
• The Night Keeps Winking (1982)
• A Tough Tale (1987)
• Third World Express (1992)
• Come and Hope With Me (1994)
• Freedom Lament and Song (1997)
• History is the Home Address (2004)

Novels

• To Every Birth Its Blood (1981)
• Gods of Our Time (1999)
• Scatter the Ashes and Go (2002)

Essays

• On the Horizon (1990)

Extra Readings 

https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mongane-wally-serote