RICHARD RIVE (South Africa)

By I M Soqaga

South African literature has a lush and remarkable numbers of writers who are actually fascinating and they continue to grow by leaps and bounds.  It is absolutely noteworthy to see literature in South Africa in particular in the post apartheid, being celebrated with utmost glee.  Richard Rive is one of the illustrious names from the 60s and 70s in particular.

Imperatively, apartheid presented a serious morass that deserved to be abrogated.  In fact its application was abysmal and thoroughly lacked sanity for human dignity and progress.  In the past because of apartheid South African writers, ineluctable had to expect unpleasant treatment because of their zealous literary forte which they used to showed with profound agility.  However, today the situation is congenially different because writers can write without being countered.  Today, South African writers are relishing their works with absolute glee.  And moreover there are colourful literary festivals throughout the country which are stupendously held with the intention to showcases disparate literary genre and the ambience is lucidly resplendent.

To highlight there are past events that remain and will of course remembered as unpalatable grotesque as a result of apartheid.  Many pre-eminent writers suffered a lot under apartheid; writers like Nat Nakasa and Lewis Nkosi were awarded Nieman Fellowship to study abroad.  They were refused passport and were forced to leave South Africa on an exit permit.  As a result they lost their South African citizenship.  Nat Nakasa died in exile after a fall from the seventh floor of a building in New York and the Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker, commits suicide by drowning in Cape Town.

What about Dennis Brutus, Es’kia Mphahlele, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer and Richard Rive? Dolefully, these writers in their lifetimes were faced with a serious predicament during apartheid times and their sole nefarious transgression was to partake in writing.  Literature that they produced was completely banned by apartheid government and their literary flair was flagrantly commended and appraise outside South Africa.  Dennis Brutus’ work, his first collection, Sirens, Knuckles and Boots won an Mbari Prize (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) and notable the collection was also published in Nigeria while he was in prison (Robben Island).

On his own part, Richard Rive’s first novel “Emergence” which takes the events leading to the Sharpeville massacre is actually a tour de force.  A protest against apartheid, Emergency was written about the Sharpeville crisis and was quickly banned by the South African government.

The role that Richard Rive played in literature was categorically mind-blowing. Inasmuch, from his early life Richard Rive cultivated multitudinous number of exhilarating works of literature.  His enormous efforts in producing such dazzling ilk of literature stamped him out as one of the few courageous wordsmiths in the face of fierce racial discrimination under apartheid.   

Indeed, Rive was a very well gifted, versed and prodigious writer whose erudition which was coupled with excellent prowess to produce such hunky-dory work of literature will be invariable recollected in the world of letters.   Rive enchanting literary works will be reminisce with South African magazines such as Drum and Fighting Talk including  European and American magazines.  Alas, his untimely death robbed South Africa and the world an exceptional, brilliant and versatile writer.

Nevertheless, it is utterly essential for modern African writers to regard Richard Rive death as a signal of inspiration.  He died as an unremitting literary activist whose interest was to see literature being palatable and lawful.  Specifically the responsibility is on writer’s shoulders to ensure that Rive works lives on indefinitely.  An open secret is that the West is not ignorant about the contribution and the impact which their writers have made over the years in advancing literature.  For centuries, the West have been showing alacrity and patriotic verve by making sure that their writers are greatly celebrated with incredible delectation by writing essays, reviews, critical works etc on them as the cue for appreciation. Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens and so on are such prominent examples of writers that are still recognized as outstanding in the West. 

Tragically, Richard Rive was viciously killed by being stabbed to death at his home in Cape Town in 1989; of course his life of writing depicted him as an earnest writer who was extraordinary committed in propagating literature.  Inevitably, Rive vivacious contribution in literature cannot be ignore but it must somewhat be celebrated, appreciated and relished with stupendous enthusiasm.