I Have No Other Country than this Country

Writing in Afrikaans and English: a conversation about South Africa, generational differences, and the future - plus poetry.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 18 January 2020 22:05 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

Connectedness with the fatherland, the struggle with inequality, motherhood, womanhood and aging. Are these themes from the versatile work of Antjie Krog also shared by her younger colleague Jolyn Phillips? Did Krog pave the way for a new generation? What does Phillips carry on and what does she leave behind? In a conversation with Chris Keulemans, Krog and Phillips take up their differences and similarities and lay out the future of Afrikaans-language literature. 

Krog is an author of poetry collections, children's poetry, prose and plays. She has also translated books from Dutch and English into Afrikaans. In the Netherlands, she is known for her impressive recitations during Poetry International, the Night of Poetry and Winternachten festival.

Phillips is working on a PhD in Creative Writing. She has published short stories and poems. In 2016 she had a successful debut with her English-language stories, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, which she adapted for the stage, including music. In 2017 she followed that up with a volume of poetry in Afrikaans, Radbraak. 

Tip: Antjie Krog also appears at the Winternachten New Year's Concert on Sunday afternoon, 19 January in the Zuiderstrand Theatre: a sparkling matinee of music, poetry and spoken word with Wende, Fresku, Ellen ten Damme, Ramsey Nasr and others. 

Line-up

Antjie Krog

(South Africa, 1952) is a poet, writer, academic and a cherished reciter. Her book Country of My Skull (2000, adapted for film in 2004) is a personal account of the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She published her autobiographical memoirs as A Change of Tongue (2003). Krog has won many prizes, including the Hertzog prize in South Africa and the 2018 Gouden Ganzenveer in the Netherlands. An anthology of her poetry was published in Dutch in 2010, titled Hoe zeg je dat (How Do You Say That), and Begging to be Black, the sequel to Country of My Skull and A Change of Tongue.
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Chris Keulemans

(Tunisia, 1960) is a writer, essayist, traveller and popular panel moderator. He has published fiction and non-fiction; was the director of the debating platform and venue De Balie; and was founder of the literary bookshop Perdu and the cultural centre De Tolhuistuin (all in Amsterdam). He performed with Enkidu Khaled in their jointly created documentary play Bagdad. Due to his curiosity about how artists recreate their cities after a crisis, he travelled to Sarajevo, Beirut, Tirana, Algiers, New York, Kiev, Jakarta and Qamishlo. At the invitation of PAX, he wrote Srebrenica & PAX 1995-2020, an overview of 25 years of support to the Association of Women of Srebrenica by the IKV and PAX in response to the genocide in Bosnia. In 2021 he published Gastvrijheid (Hospitality), in which he explores the art of hospitality through a mix of travel stories, observations, memories and imagery.
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Jolyn Phillips

(South Africa, 1992) is a writer, poet, composer, singer and activist. Her 2016 debut collection of short stories, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, received critical praise, was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize for best debut, and won the NIHSS Prize for best fiction. Phillips herself adapted the stories for the stage. In 2017 she published Radbraak, a collection of poetry in Afrikaans, which won the 2018 UJ Prize for best debut and earned a nomination for the Elizabeth Eybers Prize. She set some of these stories to music. More of her poems and short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is currently graduating from the University of the Western Cape with a PhD in creative writing and teaching African literature at the University of Johannesburg.
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