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commit.
Welcome to our Hillbrow by Mpe Phaswane
In Welcome to Our Hilbrow, Refentše is depicted as a creative writer who notes a problem with
the suppression of writing literature in African languages. In one of the passages in the novel
Refentše is addressing Refilwe about the difficulties of writing in a language NOT of one’s own.
Refentše says:
She did not know that writing in an Afri-can language in South Africa could be such a curse. She had
not anticipated that the publishers’ reviewers would brand her novel vulgar. Calling shit and genitalia
by their cor-rect names in Sepedi was apparently regarded as vulgar by these reviewers, who had for a
long time been reviewing works of fiction for educational publishers, and who were deter-mined to
ensure that such works did not of-fend the systems that they served. These systems were very
inconsistent in their attitudes to education. They considered it fine, for instance, to call genitalia by
their cor-rect names in English and Afrikaans biology books—even gave these names graphic pic-tures
as escorts—yet in all other languages, they criminalised such linguistic honesty. . . . In 1995, despite
the so-called new dispensa-tion, nothing had really changed. The leg-acy of Apartheid censors still
shackled those who dreamed of writing freely in an African The leg-acy of Apartheid censors still
shackled those who dreamed of writing freely in an African language. Publishers, scared of being
found to be on the financially dangerous side of the censorship border, still rejected manuscripts that
too realistically called things by their proper names—names that people of Tirag-along and Hillbrow
and everywhere in the world used every day. (Welcome to Our Hillbrow, 56, 57)
Assignment Task
Read the above passage and consider its significance in the African writers’ debates on which
languages to use when writing African literature. Carefully consult and read Obiajunwa Wali’s
essay, The Dead end of African Literature? (2007) Ngugi wa Thiongo essay, “The Language of
African Literature” (2007), and Chinua Achebe’s essay, “The African writer and African
Language” In: Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975) to understand this debate.
Then, write an essay of not more than three pages showing how Phaswane uses language in
Welcome to our Hillbrow. Your answer should incorporate the views of the above scholars and
you should indicate your position regarding whether the use of a certain language but not
another is still a necessary debate in the 21st century.
