“Storytellers, Not Just Case Makers”? A Study of Storytelling in the Essays of Njabulo S Ndebele

Abstract

Njabulo S Ndebele's review of Yashar Kemal's Anatolian Tales praises the effectiveness and entertainment value of Kemal's rural tales as stemming from his (Kemal's) being rooted in “the timeless tradition of storytelling”. Ndebele criticises, in contrast, the poor quality of fiction by black South African writers. He calls it journalistic, or documentary in style, ‘making a case’ of overtly political situations in the context of apartheid South Africa. Yet he venerates the literary skill of certain black writers who, he believes, marked the start of a new trend in fiction writing in 1976, calling them “storytellers, not just case makers”. However, in South African literature there are a number of interpretations of the term “storytelling” and its role particularly in black South African fiction. I deal with the interpretations of Ndebele, Mike Kirkwood and Michael Vaughan, as I trace their interpretations back to Walter Benjamin's notions of ‘storytelling’.