Gender-Based Violence, the Sophiatown Shebeens, and Presentism in Can Themba’s Stories Beyond ‘The Suit’

Abstract

The last decade or so has seen a renewed interest in Can Themba, writer on Drum magazine of the 1950s. Interest has centred on the story, ‘The Suit’: a story that taps what is a current scourge in South Africa, gender-based violence. While referring to adaptations of ‘The Suit’ by other writers, the article seeks to recover Themba as the writer of more than a single story. This involves returning his work to the time of its initial inspiration at a time of apartheid repression and Sophiatown shebeen defiance. The purpose is not to anchor Themba in his past, however, but to release his stories to speak to us today from within the contours of their originating energy.

Keywords:

• Themba
• stories
• ‘The Suit’
• Sophiatown
• gender-based violence
• presentism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Port of Natal (in the British Colony of Natal) was renamed by the local authorities as Durban in acknowledgement Sir Benjamin D’Urban, governor (1834–1838) of the adjacent Cape Colony. D’Urban’s tough frontier policies against the Xhosa people had benefited the demarcated border of the Natal Colony.

2 See Chapman (2001b [1989]).

3 Drum, a monthly magazine, came into existence in 1951 as The African Drum. It was financed by a three-man consortium headed by Jim Bailey, who had inherited part of the fortune left by his father, the Randlord Sir Abe Bailey. The son remained something of a free spirit and after the first few issues of the magazine, which included articles on religion, farming, and ‘The music of the tribes’, Drum dropped the words ‘The African’ in its title. It began to combine muck-raking journalism and sport with reportage of serious socio-political issues of the day including the Defiance Campaign and the near slave-like conditions of African workers on the potato farms of the Bethal District. Several Drum journalists would go on to establish themselves in the literature of the country: Henry Nxumalo, Es’kia [then Ezekiel] Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, Can Themba, Nat Nakasa, Casey Motsisi, Arthur Maimane, Todd Matshikiza, and the young Lewis Nkosi. Drum continues to appear monthly, now in an English edition and in African-language editions. It is one of several magazines, each with its own readership segment – more personality or family orientated, less politically orientated – in the Media 24 stable. Media 24 is a print subsidiary of the e-commerce behemoth, Naspers, established in 1915 as Nasionale Pers, a ‘transformation’ project, to use the terminology of today, of the all-white Union of South Africa government and supported by the then leader of the Afrikaner National Party. As random comments on social media and in newspaper reports suggest, the ongoing re-invention and global success of Naspers rankles certain nationalist and socialist factions in the current ruling party, the ANC.

4 See Nkosi’s vivid sketch of Themba (1983 [1965]): 12–16.

5 For further details of ‘re-visioned’ versions of ‘The Suit’, see Stobie (2017) and D’Abdon (2019).

See also Mahala’s study of Themba, a study less concerned with the character of the stories, more with the character of the man, the ‘intellectual tsotsi’, as Themba is described in the sub-title of this biography (2022).

6 See Themba (1985): 9–20.

7 See Themba (1985): 40–6.

8 See Themba (1985): 21–32.

9 See Themba (1985): 75–82.

10 See Themba (1972): 80–3.

11 Shortly before the public holiday, Women’s Day, several young women, who were to have featured in a music-video filmed in a disused mine shaft near Johannesburg, were gang raped by men who live in such shafts while scrounging for non-commercially viable gold traces. The women received no help from the film crew which, on being threatened, deserted the scene.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman is a researcher-in-residence at the Durban University of Technology. His publications include Southern African Literatures (1996) and On Literary Attachment in South Africa (2022).