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Commendation: The
Joining by Peter Slingsby |
| Real imagination is without price; you cannot buy it in a shop. It is always its own thing in that it creates its own world and does so with such heartstopping force and ease that you, as the recipient of that work of imagination, must say to yourself: allawêreld, why have I been so blind that I never saw this thing before? |
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And the way that you look at the world changes forever as a result of the revelations that the real work of imagination brings. William Blake spoke of "works of passion and imagination". It is a privilege, tonight, to present to this audience such a work of passion and imagination. The Joining is a rare and precious book. It possesses itself in simple confidence and serenity, as all works of art do. They seem to walk into the niche which has been waiting for them, |
| and all we can say is: "Ah, look, it is
here."
is a rare and precious book. It possesses itself
in simple confidence and serenity, as all works of art do. They seem to walk into the
niche which has been waiting for them, and all we can say is: "Ah, look, it is
here."Real imagination is without price; you cannot buy it in a shop. It is always its own thing
in that it creates its own world and does so with such heartstopping force and ease that
you, as the recipient of that work of imagination, must say to yourself: allawêreld, why
have I been so blind that I never saw this thing before?
There is no necessity to praise the book; it will find its own praise-singers. What I must say is that it is a San book, a plant book, a human book, an animal book, a Sederbergse book, an Agter-Pakhuis book - a Boontjieskloof book, to be precise. By this you will know that it is a book of manifest magic. It creates an act of magic before our eyes in that it makes a joining for us, not only with the past, but with the rock painting from the past. The story, which is an act of individual creation, is joined to the existing series of rock art painting in the Sederberge. In this way we experience the reactivation of part of our lost mythos. Very, very daring - and stunningly successful. Perhaps our children require of us, more than anything else, that we should give them back the silenced story of our land and of ourselves. Perhaps if they go the way of drugs and violence, as they do, they are looking with passion and twisted imagination for that broken story, for the linkage, the joining of themselves to the land. If so, then a book like The Joining is immensely important. Then we could say that the creative writer is again consciously undertaking the shaman-work of joining, completing and healing which has perhaps been absent from our writing for some time. Let us thank Peter Slingsby for this book, which graces the prize it is about to receive. I do thank him. Petra Grütter - member of the panel of judges for the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature 1996
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