Celebrating Makhosazana Xaba

Makhosazana Xaba reading from her book Our Words, Our Worlds at Amazwi, 2019.

VIEW STORY
VIEW STORY

Xaba and friends at the launch of Our Words, Our Worlds at Amazwi, 2019.
Xaba with supporters at the launch of <em>Our Words, Our Worlds</em> at Amazwi, 2019.
Xaba signs a copy of her book for an admirer.

On the occasion of the award to her of an honorary doctorate by Rhodes University, Amazwi is proud to present a celebration of the life and work of Makhosazana Xaba, a longtime friend of the museum. Amazwi offers heartfelt congratulations!

On the occasion of the award to her of an honorary doctorate by Rhodes University, Amazwi is proud to present a celebration of the life and work of Makhosazana Xaba, a longtime friend of the museum. Amazwi offers heartfelt congratulations!


Makhosazana Xaba is originally from Greytown, Kwazulu Natal but presently lives and works in Johannesburg. Amongst her various qualifications she holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Wits University. She is a political activist, and a qualified psychiatric nurse and midwife. Xaba is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.

Her deep interest in gender issues and violence against LGBTQ communities have put her at the epicentre of national and international NGOs and media organisations. She is engaged in ongoing research on the life and work of author and journalist Noni Jabavu, and supported Amazwi's development of an exhibition on Jabavu.

Makhosazana Xaba is originally from Greytown, Kwazulu Natal but presently lives and works in Johannesburg. Amongst her various qualifications she holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Wits University. She is a political activist, and a qualified psychiatric nurse and midwife. Xaba is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.

Her deep interest in gender issues and violence against LGBTQ communities have put her at the epicentre of national and international NGOs and media organisations. She is engaged in ongoing research on the life and work of author and journalist Noni Jabavu, and supported Amazwi's development of an exhibition on Jabavu.


Makhosazana Xaba at a reading of ISIS X, a poetry anthology to which she contributed. Photographer unknown.
Makhosazana Xaba at a reading of <em>ISIS X</em>, a poetry anthology to which she contributed. Photographer unknown.

Xaba’s writing reaches through many genres: poetry, short stories, children’s books, anthologies and literary history. In addition to her many books she has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals. Internationally, her poems have been  translated into six different languages. Her poetry collections include The Art Of Waiting For Tales (2021), The Alkalinity of Bottled Water (2019), Tongues Of Their Mothers (2008) and These Hands (2005 and 2017). Her fiction includes Running and Other Stories (2013) and children's books in English and isiZulu.

Xaba’s writing reaches through many genres: poetry, short stories, children’s books, anthologies and literary history. In addition to her many books she has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals. Internationally, her poems have been  translated into six different languages. Her poetry collections include The Art Of Waiting For Tales (2021), The Alkalinity of Bottled Water (2019), Tongues Of Their Mothers (2008) and These Hands (2005 and 2017). Her fiction includes Running and Other Stories (2013) and children's books in English and isiZulu.


‘Speaking of hearts’ has an intimate tone, speaking about loneliness in images relating specifically to the experiences of women. The draft of this poem indicates a few changes to the poem and a correction.
Getting a collection of poems into the world is a process of many decisions, many changes. What became <em>The Alkalinity of Bottled Water</em> had other titles in its earlier days. It travelled a long way before becoming a book, as can be seen in these notes to a draft title page.
‘Speaking of hearts’ has an intimate tone, speaking about loneliness in images relating specifically to the experiences of women. The draft of this poem indicates a few changes to the poem and a correction.
Once Xaba’s collection <em>Tongues of Their Mothers</em> was accepted for publication by UKZN Press, there was still a process of in-house editors and outside reviewers to go through. She kept a print-out of the emails from Wonder Thabo Chabalala from UKZN Press and the appointed editor, Kobus Moolman, as part of the history of her manuscript.
Once Xaba’s collection <em>Tongues of Their Mothers</em> was accepted for publication by UKZN Press, there was still a process of in-house editors and outside reviewers to go through. She kept a print-out of the emails from Wonder Thabo Chabalala from UKZN Press and the appointed editor, Kobus Moolman, as part of the history of her manuscript.

Xaba as poet

Clare Wyllie writes in Agenda that to 'encounter Makhosazana Xaba’s poetry is to enter a space where an activist past and engagement with current social problems are refracted through a unique personal vision that is sharp, witty and ripe with experience.'

Myesha Jenkins, a fellow poet who sadly passed in 2020, ran a programme on SAfm titled Poetry on the Air. On 25 August 2014 Jenkins hosted Makhosazana Xaba. Xaba said that her focus on women’s work in life is necessitated by the fact that so much of women’s work is invisible even when it is right in front of our eyes.

Xaba as poet

Clare Wyllie writes in Agenda that to 'encounter Makhosazana Xaba’s poetry is to enter a space where an activist past and engagement with current social problems are refracted through a unique personal vision that is sharp, witty and ripe with experience.'

Myesha Jenkins, a fellow poet who sadly passed in 2020, ran a programme on SAfm titled Poetry on the Air. On 25 August 2014 Jenkins hosted Makhosazana Xaba. Xaba said that her focus on women’s work in life is necessitated by the fact that so much of women’s work is invisible even when it is right in front of our eyes.


South African Literary Awards programme for 2014
South African Literary Awards programme for 2014
South African Literary Awards programme for 2014

Running and Other Stories

The South African Literary Awards (SALA) awarded the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award to Makhosazana Xaba for her collection Running and Other Stories in 2014. The title story also won the Deon Hofmeyr Prize for Creative Writing in 2005, and in 2014 was anthologised in 20 Best Short Stories of South Africa’s Democracy.

Running and Other Stories

The South African Literary Awards (SALA) awarded the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award to Makhosazana Xaba for her collection Running and Other Stories in 2014. The title story also won the Deon Hofmeyr Prize for Creative Writing in 2005, and in 2014 was anthologised in 20 Best Short Stories of South Africa’s Democracy.


Bringing together stories

Makhosazana Xaba has compiled and edited a number of collections of poetry, short fiction and life stories. These include Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013) and Queer Africa 2: New Stories (2017), both edited with Karen Martin, Proudly Malawian: Life Stories from Lesbian and Gender-Nonconforming Individuals (2016) which was compiled and edited with Crystal Biruk, and Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems (2016). This volume was translated into Spanish by Arrate Hidalgo and Lawrence Schimel and published as Como el viento intocable. These anthologies focus on Xaba’s work in the areas of women’s rights, gender and anti-bias training in the struggle against violence against LGBTQ communities. The first Queer Africa volume won the Lambda Literary Award that celebrates vibrant, dynamic LGBTQ storytelling for the fiction anthology category in 2014

Xaba also contributed an introduction to a new edition of a little-known anthology of poetry by women members of the African National Congress. The original publication, Malibongwe: ANC Women Speak: Poetry is also their Weapon, was published in Germany in 1981 and edited by the late Lindiwe Mabuza. The anthology includes poems by Mabuza as well as the former speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, amongst other poets, all serving the ANC in exile. In her introduction to the new edition, Xaba mentions that she herself served the ANC in Lusaka, where several of the poets were based. The new edition Malibongwe: Poems from the Struggle by ANC Women was published by Uhlanga in 2020.

Bringing together stories

Makhosazana Xaba has compiled and edited a number of collections of poetry, short fiction and life stories. These include Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013) and Queer Africa 2: New Stories (2017), both edited with Karen Martin, Proudly Malawian: Life Stories from Lesbian and Gender-Nonconforming Individuals (2016) which was compiled and edited with Crystal Biruk, and Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems (2016). This volume was translated into Spanish by Arrate Hidalgo and Lawrence Schimel and published as Como el viento intocable. These anthologies focus on Xaba’s work in the areas of women’s rights, gender and anti-bias training in the struggle against violence against LGBTQ communities. The first Queer Africa volume won the Lambda Literary Award that celebrates vibrant, dynamic LGBTQ storytelling for the fiction anthology category in 2014

Xaba also contributed an introduction to a new edition of a little-known anthology of poetry by women members of the African National Congress. The original publication, Malibongwe: ANC Women Speak: Poetry is also their Weapon, was published in Germany in 1981 and edited by the late Lindiwe Mabuza. The anthology includes poems by Mabuza as well as the former speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, amongst other poets, all serving the ANC in exile. In her introduction to the new edition, Xaba mentions that she herself served the ANC in Lusaka, where several of the poets were based. The new edition Malibongwe: Poems from the Struggle by ANC Women was published by Uhlanga in 2020.


The coloured tabs on the draft for Our Words, Our Worlds helped the editor fine-tune the anthology for publication.
Noni Jabavu is a focus of Xaba's academic research. Jabavu was the first black woman to become editor of an important British literary journal, <em>The New Strand</em>. Here she is pictured at her editor's desk in 1961.
The coloured tabs on the draft for <em>Our Words, Our Worlds</em> helped the editor fine-tune the anthology for publication.

Words and Worlds

Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000-2018, edited by Xaba, is a ground-breaking, multi-genre anthology that brings together the writings of over 20 contributors through literary critique, personal essays and interviews. The book tells the story of the seismic shift that transformed national culture through poetry and is the first of its kind to explore the history and impact of poetry by black women, in their own voices. It straddles the disciplines of literary theory, feminism, the history of the book and politics, and thus uses interdisciplinarity to decolonise literary culture.

Xaba is engaged in an ongoing academic research project on the life and work of pioneering black woman author and journalist Helen Nontando (Noni) Jabavu. Xaba thus actively supports the work of black women writers with both a historic and a contemporary emphasis.

Words and Worlds

Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000-2018, edited by Xaba, is a ground-breaking, multi-genre anthology that brings together the writings of over 20 contributors through literary critique, personal essays and interviews. The book tells the story of the seismic shift that transformed national culture through poetry and is the first of its kind to explore the history and impact of poetry by black women, in their own voices. It straddles the disciplines of literary theory, feminism, the history of the book and politics, and thus uses interdisciplinarity to decolonise literary culture.

Xaba is engaged in an ongoing academic research project on the life and work of pioneering black woman author and journalist Helen Nontando (Noni) Jabavu. Xaba thus actively supports the work of black women writers with both a historic and a contemporary emphasis.


Makhosazana Xaba delivering her manuscript material to Amazwi to be conserved as part of South Africa's literary heritage.
Makhosazana Xaba archived her writing and the responses to her work within her time. The scrapbook is an example of an individual’s recording of their lived experience.
Makhosazana Xaba delivering her manuscript material to Amazwi to be conserved as part of South Africa's literary heritage.

Archiving

On The Poetry Archive, Xaba indicates that to her, writing is necessary because it gives a historical perspective to these problems, to speak and to ‘listen to the voices that come’. She often references specific dates and news stories in accordance to the feminist political activist poet Adrienne Rich’s decision to date poems as 'a declaration that placed poetry in a historical continuity, not above or outside history'. Xaba states that we 'must write as much as possible for future generations to understand'.

Archiving

On The Poetry Archive, Xaba indicates that to her, writing is necessary because it gives a historical perspective to these problems, to speak and to ‘listen to the voices that come’. She often references specific dates and news stories in accordance to the feminist political activist poet Adrienne Rich’s decision to date poems as 'a declaration that placed poetry in a historical continuity, not above or outside history'. Xaba states that we 'must write as much as possible for future generations to understand'.


Xaba has been putting forward the writing of black women writers even more boldly in projects to make found poetry from South African women’s writing. So far, she has published poetry emanating from the work of Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell’s Grace, Mohale Mashigo’s novel The Yearning and Lindiwe Mabuza’s Preface to Malibongwe.

In the preface to The Art of Waiting for Tales Xaba says that her work in this manner, 'is a manifestation of what it means to show up for one another as Black women writers. It is a product of a political imagination. This is the kind of imagination that has a higher purpose than an individualised creativity and focus on oneself; it reaches out and pays tribute to the community of writers and readers, and therefore it is a political initiative. It is political-and-feminist because it prioritises another woman’s writing and consequently builds a text-founded bridge of a feminist sisterhood and solidarity'.

Xaba has been putting forward the writing of black women writers even more boldly in projects to make found poetry from South African women’s writing. So far, she has published poetry emanating from the work of Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell’s Grace, Mohale Mashigo’s novel The Yearning and Lindiwe Mabuza’s Preface to Malibongwe.

In the preface to The Art of Waiting for Tales Xaba says that her work in this manner, 'is a manifestation of what it means to show up for one another as Black women writers. It is a product of a political imagination. This is the kind of imagination that has a higher purpose than an individualised creativity and focus on oneself; it reaches out and pays tribute to the community of writers and readers, and therefore it is a political initiative. It is political-and-feminist because it prioritises another woman’s writing and consequently builds a text-founded bridge of a feminist sisterhood and solidarity'.