Even if I was born for a life destined to surprise the unworthy and uplift the underserving, it would still be a rare good fortune that I knew Nadine Gordimer closely, that she adopted me as her friend, that I benefitted from her support as a writer. That I was not born for such a life makes my privilege more special, my gratitude more profound.

I was introduced to Nadine on 23 May 2008, by the South African culture activist Raks Morakabe Seakhoa. He organized the celebration of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart at 50 in Johannesburg and invited me to take part in a panel discussion and as a performance poet and arranged my meeting Nadine on the side.

With a manuscript of The Heresiad, my book-length, pro-pace and anti-censorship poem meant as a gift for Nadine, we arrived at her house in the company of Phakama Mbonambi, a close associate of Raks. (Incidentally, I call The Heresiad operatic poetry because it is also a musical work conceived for performance as an opera, with some of its lines having been set to music in the manuscript I presented to Nadine.)

For such a revered writer and global figure, I was surprised that she would keep me completely at ease for the nearly two hours’ duration of our meeting. Not hers the airs I had sometimes noticed from some far less accomplished writers. I could hardly believe that such a great figure could embody such humility.