Words On Water

Literature

Durban Programme
GSB Auditorium, Westville Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal
13th Sept’08

Inaugural address
10.00 am – 10.05 am	Prof Johan Jacobs Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor:Research, Knowledge Production & Partnerships
10.05 am – 10.20 am	Mr. Harsh Vardhan Shringla Consul-General of India
SESSION I: Fiction and History
Chairperson: PROFESSOR JOHAN JACOBS
10.20 am – 10.50 am	Nayantara Sahgal
10.50 am – 11.20 am	Michael Green
SESSION II: Literature and Place
Chairperson: PROFESSOR MICHAEL GREEN
11.20 am – 11.50 am	William Dalrymple
11.50 am – 12.20 pm	Aziz Hassim
SESSION III: Stories and Performance
Chairperson: PROFESSOR LINDY STIEBEL
1.50 pm – 2.20 pm	Kunal Basu
2.20 pm – 2.50 pm	Gcina Mhlophe
SESSION IV: Literature and Engagement
Chairperson: DR GCINA MHLOPHE
2.50 pm – 3.20 pm	Urvashi Butalia
3.20 pm – 3.50 pm	Pitika Ntuli
SESSION V: Creative Non-Fiction
Chairperson: PROFESSOR PITIKA NTULI
4.05 pm – 4.35 pm	Pavan K. Varma
4.35 pm – 4.40 pm	CLOSING REMARKS

DURBAN AUTHORS

Michael Green author, poet, singer-songwriter, and academic was born and raised in Pinetown. He spent a year in California as an exchange student and then supported his studies at the University of Natal (and a musical career that drew more attention from the Security Branch than the music industry) as a stoker on the railways. He completed his Masters at Stanford and Doctorate at York. Now Professor of English at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, he has just been appointed Head of the School of Literary Studies, Media and Creative Arts. Green is one of the founders of the Poetry Africa and Time of the Writer Festivals in which he has appeared as both presenter and performer.

Aziz Hassim Durban born, now a retired accountant, spent most of his early years fraternising on the streets in Durban’s Casbah. Durban, and particularly the Casbah area, had a kind of romance and bittersweet lifestyle during the fifties and sixties, which, in spite of the apartheid laws (or perhaps because of them) lives on only in the minds of those that inhabited it at the time. Hassim’s debut novel, The Lotus People, which won the 2001 Sanlam Literary Award for an unpublished novel, spans the events and moods of this era and served as a form of catharsis for the 66 year old Hassim. literary tourism

Gcina Mhlophe Poet, playwright, performer and South Africa 's favourite storyteller, she has been writing and performing on stage and screen for the past 23 years. Encouraged during her childhood by her grandmother to let her imagination run wild, Gcina started writing and telling her stories. She produced and performed in the collaboration CD for children with Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 1993, and has written the music and stories for the SABCTV series, Gcina & Friends . In 2000 she released an award-winning storytelling CD entitled Fudukazi's Magic for German audiences

Pitika Ntuli is an internationally known poet, artist and academic. He spent his exile years in the U.K. where he helped establish one of Europe's leading poetry circuits, Apples & Snakes, in London, and where he also lectured in Fine Art and English Literature. While in London he also worked closely with Amnesty International and Index-on-Censorship. Prof. Ntuli returned to South Africa at the end of 1994 and lectured at Wits University before he joined the staff of the University of Durban-Westville in 1995. In 1996-97 he was seconded to the post of Deputy Vice Chancellor with a brief to stabilise the tormented institution. Ntuli sits on several boards including the BAT Centre Trust, Universal Creative Arts, and Artists for Human Rights. Pitika Ntuli has performed his poetry with leading musicians like the late Dudu Pukwana, Mervin Africa, Julkian Bahule, Lucky Ranku and Eugene Skeef.

Professor Johann Jacobs obtained MPhil and PhD degrees at Columbia University in New York, specialising in American Literature. Since the late 1970s his research specialisation has been mainly in South African and Postcolonial writing, and he has published over 75 journal articles and books on South African and postcolonial fiction, prison memoirs and travel writing. He is currently President of the International Literature of Region and Nation Association & Chair of the Ethics Sub-Committee for Human and Social Sciences.

Professor Lindy Stiebel is Professor and Academic Coordinator of English Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has published books including Imagining Africa: landscape in H.Rider Haggard’s African romances and most recently exiled South African writer Lewis Nkosi (Still Beating the Drum: critical perspectives on Lewis Nkosi) . She has been project leader of KZN Literary Tourism & has developed a series of literary trails around the writers and places of KwaZulu-Natal.

INDIAN AUTHORS

Nayantara Sahgal is a writer and political commentator. She has published nine novels and five non-fiction works. Her award-winning work includes Rich Like Us which won the Sinclair Fiction Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award and Plans For Departure which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. She is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During the 1980's she was Vice President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties.

William Dalrymple is the author of five acclaimed works of history and travel, including City of Djinns, From the Holy Mountain; White Mughals, and The Last Mughal. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Statesman and The Guardian.

Kunal Basu is an author, actor, and director. He has penned three novels, The Opium Clerk, The Miniaturist, and Racists. His book of short stories, The Japanese Wife, is being made into a film by Aparna Sen. He is also an academic and currently directs the Oxford University Advanced Management Programme.

Urvashi Butalia is the publisher of Zubaan, a publishing house and an imprint of Kali for Women. Among her published works are: Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays (co edited with Tanika Sarkar), Speaking Peace: Women's Voices on Kashmir (edited) and the award winning oral history of Partition: The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India.

Pavan K. Varma. Apart from being a prominent diplomat he is a writer with over a dozen books to his credit, including Ghalib: The Man, The Times and the Havelis of Old Delhi. His books on contemporary subjects - The Great Indian Middle Class; Being Indian: The Truth about why the 21st Century Will Be India’s, have been path breaking. Pavan K. Varma is currently the Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi.

For bookings please Click Here