Reading Homer and the Nguni novel

Abstract

In this essay I explore how my reading of Homer has shaped my novels, The Broken River Tent (2018) and The Wanderers (2021). I reflect on the making of Nguni literature in relation to oral histories and stories. Engaging debates about language and colonialism, in conversation with writers such as James Joyce and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, I argue that it is possible for someone with a good grasp of isiXhosa as a living language and culture to transfer it through other languages. This essay offers a passionate argument for a reading of the classics for wonderfully strange affinities.