Grahamstown

[Undated], early 1979

Dear Bernth,

Thanks for your note. To my shame I haven't been able to settle down to the review of Lewis N's book. The request came when I was in the throes of moving from the US; then I was unsettled waiting for the inanities of life in this country to take their course, culminating in the giant inanity concerning the University of the North. When I realized there was a conspiracy, in which the African administrator had no mean role, to neutralize my presence, I wondered if my idealism had betrayed me. Things picked up when I was invited to Wits to become Senior Research Fellow in the African Studies Institute, (Tim Couzens’, now headed by Charles Van Onselen – both v. fine guys). I shall return to Wits end of April, & will unpack my boxes to fish out Lewis's book to review it. Please be patient; it shall be done.

My address now will be African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Ave., Joburg 2001, for all correspondence & RAL.

I was given a 2-month fellowship here which I took on after my first month with Wits (Feb). Am finishing a memoir on exile & return which I had started in Phila. André [De Villiers] invited me, which I think was v. sporting of him.

Say Hi to Richard [Rive] & say he's a lucky bastard to be able to make trips in & out, like he has summer & winter cottages abroad. Often I long for those stimulating American encounters, but I always come back to the basic conviction that it was the right things for us to return here, no matter the inanities. And our people's reception – more important than anything else, has been most inspiring. The elite fringe that sees us as ghosts return to challenge or upset their emergent-Africa comfort – the counterparts of the Addison Gayles – one can dismiss as petty. Actually one doesn't even have to deal with them in print like it was with A.G.

Warmest regards,

Zeke

[P.S.] Ravan Press in Jbg is bringing out my novel CHIRUNDU, which no American house that matters would accept. Some of their reservations, outside of the economics, are well taken.