Conversation with South African Poet Keorapetse Kgositsile

Abstract

The following is a reconstruction of a conversation I had with Keorapetse on April 15, 1996. Keorapetse (Willie) Kgositsile is a South African poet and former Deputy Secretary of Arts and Culture for the ANC (African National Congress). Keorapetse once told me about the profound impact Richard Wright’s Native Son had on him as a young man. I was intrigued by the implied American to Africa influences contained in this statement. I began our conversation there.In the 1950’s a Black sailor from the United States came to Capetown and gave someone there a copy of Richard Wright’s Native Son. That single copy traveled around the whole country. Each person would keep it a week or two, read and reread it, and then pass it on. Native Son convinced me that as an African writer I did not have to sound like a carbon copy English boy if I wrote in English.