By Zoliswa Mdawini
“When I speak, when I act, when I think, when I feel like Musuthu [Sotho people], there’s very little work I have to do, because I know who I am,” said legendary actor Jerry Mofokeng at the opening of the 2025 Eastern Cape Literature Festival at the Monument on Friday.
Mofokeng co-hosted a powerful, almost three-hour discussion with Dr John Kani on the importance of writing and reading in our home languages.
Mofokeng accented the authenticity that comes with writing in one’s own language. He challenged the audience to think about why Black South Africans often feel pressured to write, speak, or act in languages and ways that are not their own.
He said this pressure to assimilate comes from a long history where language was used as a tool to control and oppress. Many young people today lack confidence in reading or expressing themselves in their native languages.
This left the audience divided as to who needs to be held accountable for the lack of representation of African languages in libraries and bookstores. While some believed the government is to blame, others, like Dr John Kani, disagreed: “It is not the government’s not publishing or distributing our books – the failure is in us as a society. We don’t read!”
Kani, who has spent decades on stages worldwide, reminded the audience of how much South Africans still have to do to build a culture that celebrates all aspects of the arts.
“You go to America and the question is: Have you seen so-and-so’s new play? It’s brilliant – it’s something you must see. The conversation is about culture,” Kani said. “Here in South Africa, people do not always have such conversations. When communities fail to support their storytellers, it becomes nearly impossible for those writers to produce new work.”
Mofokeng said he became a reader when he was at Columbia University doing an MA in theatre. “My academic journey detoxed me of my reading allergy,” he said. Bantu Education used language to “destroy people, destroy a nation”.
For the people who said they find it difficult to write in their home languages, Kani advised them to get a tutor to teach them “the fundamentals of our language”.
