The Bookseller.com

7th September 2008

Gary Cummiskey is founder, editor, and publisher of independent South African publisher Dye Hard Press.

A new elitism?

01.04.08

A few weeks back, the South African newspaper The Weekender carried a story by William Skidelsky called 'Bloggers throw down the gauntlet'. According to the story, there has been a bit of a war between newspaper book reviewers and bloggers in the UK, with figures such as academic and book reviewer John Sutherland criticising literary blogs as leading to a "degradation of literary taste". When novelist Susan Hill hit back at such remarks on her blog, a newspaper books editor told her that "no book either published or written by you will in future be reviewed on our literary pages".
 
It boils down to a conflict between an elitism trying to defend what it considers to be its territory and what Skidelsky calls a newly emerging "democratisation of opinion" manifest in the blogosphere.
 
All this sounds familiar, as many independent literary publishers in South Africa – whether in print or online – have also had to deal with such elitist attitudes.
 
For example, about 12 years ago, just as a number of independent literary journals and publishers were beginning to emerge, the editors of the poetry journal Something Quarterly sent off a complimentary copy to the well-known poet, critic and publisher Lionel Abrahams. In his response, instead of welcoming a new, sorely-needed literary journal into the market, Abrahams instead strongly criticised and called it amateurish.
 
About the same time, a University of Cape Town professor had been asked by World Literature Today to write a piece on contemporary South African poetry publishing. Although the professor's researcher did get in contact with a number of independent publishers, when the article appeared, none of the independents was mentioned. I do not know who was responsible for this decision, but it was like a slap in the face.
 
Fair enough, this was more than a decade ago, and perhaps some poor judgement back then could be forgiven, but this elitism is still very much alive and kicking. Here are a few instances.
 
About two years ago, a negative review of a poetry collection of mine, which I had published under my imprint Dye Hard Press, appeared in the newsletter of the National English Literary Museum. The review was written by the director of the institution. That he disliked the collection – he said it wasn't poetry -  didn't bother me so much as the review's conclusion that no one would want to read the collection, which "showed the dangers of self-publishing". This seemed quite a bewildering attitude from the head of an organisation that says in its mission statement  that it aims "to promote the reading and appreciation of all forms of imaginative South African literature in English".
 
Also about this time, the Sunday Times newspaper carried a negative review of three new titles by independent publisher Botsotso. One book in particular, Isis X, an anthology of South African women's poetry, was savaged – there is no other word for it – by the (woman) reviewer, who dismissed as a sort of unfortunate by-product of the new democracy, whereby "anyone could be a poet". Actually, a number of the poets in the book had already had collections published.
 
There has also been some reluctance in South Africa to accept the internet as a legitimate publishing medium. Some writers still regard it as "not real publishing". I have also heard some writers say they feel that work published online is not subjected to the same (real or perceived) evaluation process that print publications go through. I suspect this is because the physical process of uploading text to a website from a PC is different, quicker and easier than that of a publishing house sending a book to a printing business to be printed and bound in a number of copies.  It was thus no great surprise to read a dismissive remark in the newspaper Business Day recently that blogging was a mechanism that "allows anyone to become a publisher or published writer".
 
While there may be a bit of technophobia involved with regard to suspicions about online publishing, what I sense is a situation whereby the literary elite - whether it be writers, academia or publishers - regards itself as "owning the right" to decide what deserves to be published and what doesn't.
 
What is being challenged in South Africa is not only the democratisation of opinion, but also the democratisation of culture, and the democratisation of the right and ability to contribute to that culture. No doubt there are a tremendous amount of bad blogs being produced in South Africa, as elsewhere, but there are also quality ones, such as Aryan Kaganof's Kagablog, Goodenough Mashego's Kasi Kulture, and Ben William's Books Southern Africa.  The same also applies to print publications by independents – there have been some weak productions, but also excellent, groundbreaking work.
 
Considering it was not that long ago that South Africa was subjected to suppression of information under the apartheid regime, one would think the activities of independent publishers  - whether in print or online - would be welcomed rather than attacked or dismissed. After all, journalists in oppressive states use blogs to avoid being subjected to same restrictions as print media. We know about China's restrictions on internet access, and recently Iran blocked YouTube.         
 
Of course, when one considers the bigger picture, such as South Africa's lack of a book-reading culture, the high cost of new books and only about 7% of the population having ready internet access, one could question the bottom-line effect of literary endeavours, irrespective of whether they are elitist or democratic, online or in print. Plus it could be argued that what constitutes "good writing" is always subjective.
 
Skidelsky concludes his piece by saying that literary journalists and bloggers in the UK are missing the point as "they are really allies in a more important battle – for literature itself, and its right to be taken seriously".
 
That battle is even more imperative in South Africa. 

Comments on this article