‘It was like singing in the wilderness’: An Interview with Unity Dow

Kunapipi Volume 26 | Issue 2 Article 7 2004 ‘It was like singing in the wilderness’: An Interview with Unity Dow M.J Daymond Margaret Lenta Follow this and additional works at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi Recommended Citation Daymond, M.J and Lenta, Margaret, ‘It was like singing in the wilderness’: An Interview with Unity Dow, Kunapipi, 26(2), 2004. Available at:http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol26/iss2/7 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: ‘It was like singing in the wilderness’: An Interview with Unity Dow Abstract Unity Dow has published three novels in rapid succession: Far and Beyon’ (2000), The Screaming of the Innocent (2002) and Juggling Truths (2003). She is also the first woman to be appointed a judge of the High Court in Botswana; before her appointment she was an attorney and a prominent human rights activist, and she won some landmark cases in Botswana. This journal article is available in Kunapipi: http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol26/iss2/7 47 M.J. DAYMOND AND MARGARET LENTA ‘It was like singing in the wilderness’: An Interview with Unity Dow (Durban, March 2004) Unity Dow has published three novels in rapid succession: Far and Beyon’ (2000), The Screaming of the Innocent (2002) and Juggling Truths (2003). She is also the first woman to be appointed a judge of the High Court in Botswana; before her appointment she was an attorney and a prominent human rights activist, and she won some landmark cases in Botswana. For example, she won the right for a Motswana mother (Photo: University of KwaZulu-Natal) to give her nationality to her child — previously only the father could do so. She has said that in her novels she is ‘reclaiming the voice’ to speak out on human rights issues, particularly those of women. She was a guest at an annual writers’ festival, ‘The Time of the Writer’, that was held in Durban in March 2004. On March 22, Margaret Daymond and Margaret Lenta took the opportunity to interview her about her novels and her entry into the literary scene in Botswana. ***** D&L: How did you begin writing fiction, when did you begin, why did you begin and how did you choose your subject matter? UD: new kunapipi 1 First, how I chose what I wrote about: the easier part of a very complicated question. My first book is very much about family relationships, and about HIV-AIDS, and I guess when you start writing, you write about yourself — even if it’s not strictly autobiographical, it’s what you know best. What was hitting me at the time was people around me dealing with the HIVAIDS situation, and how the kids were in tension between new Africa and old Africa. So that’s what kept me writing in Far and Beyon’. My second book, The Screaming of the Innocent, again captures what I hold dear to my heart about children, about the extent to which I believe that we don’t protect children, we fail children. So even though it is focused 47 3/9/05, 9:14 AM 48 M.J. Daymond and Margaret Lenta primarily on a ritual killing, the bigger picture for me is the extent to which societies don’t protect their young. People often say that children are the future; I don’t disagree, but they are also the present — we must protect them because they are what is now. My third book goes back — I guess, once I had the courage of the two books — to look at my own life and at what I felt children benefited from in our traditions, and where we failed to strengthen children. That’s why I wrote it. Why did I start to write? I can honestly say that having worked as an activist for many years, having had no control over what I had to do as a lawyer, I found that at last [as a judge] I was in a state of silence; I had time to reflect. Although being a judge is a very busy job, it’s not a chaotic job. I know exactly what I will be doing next May, and June, and July — the chaos happens out there. My work is pre-packaged and each case is put in a different file, blue if it’s a murder, green if there’s an appeal. But before, I was part of the chaos, I was picking up pieces, and I had no time in my life to write. I always thought I would like to write — I always felt that my head was full of stories. I felt that everyone around me is a story, a potential story. I really think that I got the first chance to write when I became a judge. D&L: You say that Juggling Truths took you back to your own life — are you implying it’s an autobiographical work? UD: I say to my kids, ‘Of course it’s not an autobiographical work’, and my daughter smiles: ‘Mum, this is exactly what you told us about your life growing up’. So we argue about whether it is an autobiography — it’s got a piece of myself, a piece of my sister, a piece of the people around me in it. I think in many ways it comes from the stories I told my own children when they were growing up. My youngest daughter just loves stories. I used to read from the Ladybird stories and Doctor Seuss, but she would say, ‘Mum, I want you to tell stories about when you were young’. At the time she thought I was just making them up — it’s too fantastic for her that people lived like that, with no running water, with no electricity, because those days were something else. So it’s a bit about myself, but also definitely drawn from others. D&L: You are interested in the rural-urban divide in all three books. Did you grow up in a village? UD: Yes, very much so. I grew up in a village — I didn’t see a refrigerator until I was a teenager. I first saw a TV set when I was twenty in Swaziland, which is where I went to study for my law degree. D&L: Talking about education: in Juggling Truths, the parents choose to send their daughter, Monei, to school to give her a formal, Western education new kunapipi 1 48 3/9/05, 9:14 AM ‘It was like singing in the wilderness’ 49 — was that something like your own experience? Did all your siblings go to school? Do you come from a largish family? UD: I grew up with a father for whom there was no compromise; we had to go to school. We were a large family of seven children, six of whom have had college education and some of them have postgraduate education. This was unique for my neighbourhood. So for my father there was no compromise; it came out later that he wanted to go to university, and that he won a scholarship to study at Fort Hare (at the time, there was no university in Botswana and so black people came to South Africa to black universities to study), but at the last minute the son of the chief was the one who was sent to university. So my father made a promise to himself that it would not happen to his children, that his children would have the education that he didn’t have. D&L: And your mother’s attitude to education? UD: Also totally uncompromising. My mother can read and write in Setswana, but not in English; my father can speak English and can read in English. It was just that we had to stay (...truncated)