AT A CONFERENCE I once attended, a writer (white) made the startling (to me, at any rate) assertion that Cecil Rhodes brought apples to South Africa. This came after some of us (African writers) had been going on, decrying colonialism and the hardships and disruption it had brought to the African continent. I suppose she was putting us in our place or, as the saying goes, setting the record straight.

I bring this up because it is also true that colonialism brought writing to South Africa. It also brought us the English language. However, because the nature of colonialism was never one of equality between the colonisers and the colonised, the inequality affected all aspects of life and living, including writing.

The English language and writing was in most probability taught to natives with the view of serving the coloniser and his purpose, which may broadly be described as trade and spreading Christianity.

I was born into a Christian family and went to a mission school for my primary school education. Even when I was at high school, even though it was not a church school, the day started with assembly, where we had hymn-singing and prayers, usually in English. At home, I do not recall much attention being paid to the language of the child, except for the first burst of happy surprise when the baby starts making sounds that announce she is attempting human speech. Oh, yes, then there is much encouragement. However, that soon stops as the baby becomes a toddler and then a child and her speech is taken for granted. It is at school that I recall receiving praise for my use of language. However, although that praise was for both spoken and written language, not one of my teachers, right up to teacher-training college, ever hinted that there might be a writer hidden somewhere inside me. The idea of developing a skill, in which I showed clear promise, was simply never imparted to me.