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| Lulu Phezulu: An interview with award-winning South African author Leigh Voigt By Our South African Editor Merilyn Tomkins  Leigh Voigt, author of Lulu Phezulu, winner of the prestigious 2000 Book Data Award, is a well-known writer, artist and book illustrator in South Africa. Read our review. The book is at one level a personal account of a family moving from a city to the country and their serendipitous encounters with nature and the local people. Leigh was born to a botanical artist mother and a psychiatrist father. Her training was at the Johannesburg School of Art; she then spent seven years in advertising studios. She has had seventeen solo exhibitions, has participated in many group shows and is represented in galleries and private collections in South Africa, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Canada. She lives with her artist husband on a nature reserve in Mpumalanga. They have two sons: Max, an architect, and Walter, an artist and pilot. MERILYN TOMKINS - Welcome, Leigh. What compelled you to write LULU PHEZULU? LEIGH VOIGT - I love books, all books. Not only is reading important to me but I love the production of a book, the design, the typography, the smell of the ink and the paper and the sound of the spine as a new book opens for the first time. It would seem from the above that the writing of LULU PHEZULU would have been a contrived, planned exercise, but it was a project that began twenty years ago with a few scribbles and it just grew from that. I have always collected snippets of information, either in the form of sketches or as notes. Suddenly one day, it dawned on me that I had the makings of a book, so I approached a publisher and before I knew it I was committed to print. How does it feel to have won the much sought after 2000 Book Data Award? When LULU PHEZULU was nominated and put on the short list for the 2000 Book Data Award, I had never been more amazed in my life. Then when my name was called out, I was dumbfounded. I had prepared no speech, I had not thought for one moment that my LULU PHEZULU Leigh Voigt's African Album could be mentioned in the same breath as J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize Winning DISGRACE or Pamela Jooste's very popular FRIEDA AND MIN. Why do you think your African Album made the mark and won as opposed to other notable books that had been nominated? In your opinion, what made the difference? I was told by Francis Bennett of Book Data Limited that the judges were excited because for the first time, a book had been published which accentuated the positive side of South Africa, and they wanted to encourage that aspect. Is LULU PHEZULU a window into South Africa or at least a small parcel of it, especially for readers in other parts of the world? LULU PHEZULU is a personal glimpse into a particular aspect of nature. It looks at the smaller things, the quirky, the aberrant, the amusing and the bizarre. It shows more than the usual big five and introduces a different way of looking at the natural world. It also has stories of people who are connected in one way or another with the natural world. We are, or should be, connected to the Earth from which we derive our energies, and if we lose that, we run the risk of becoming dulled to the sensibilities of our fellow man. How has the book been received by readers in America for example? How is South Africa perceived abroad today? LULU PHEZULU has not yet been seen in America, except for a few individuals who have some connection with South Africa. It certainly made those hanker for Africa, so I suppose it has captured the spirit of the place. I have just returned from a visit to the United States. In my short stay, I found that unless they are directly connected in some way with South Africa, Americans generally do not know about South Africa. It is quite understandable. Their country is booming, their interests lie more in their own activities, sport, politics, and entertainment. The fact that I live an hour or two's drive from the Kruger Park raised an eyebrow or two, but I think they were disappointed that I did not sport a loin cloth. Your next book, scheduled for release about September 2001, is with Marguerite Poland and will be about Nguni Cattle. As I understand, Marguerite Poland has written the text and you will be doing some 40 oil paintings, with reference to the significance of Nguni Cattle in Zulu Culture and language. How do you come to collaborate with Marguerite Poland? Tell us more about this exciting project and what it all means. Marguerite Poland was awarded her Doctorate with her thesis entitled "Uchibidolo : The Abundant Herds, A Descriptive Study of the Sanga-Nguni Cattle of the Zulu People". The manuscript has been re-written, edited and made more accessible to the general reader. With the collaboration and encouragement of Professor David Hammond-Tooke, it will be published next year in what we would like to call a Celebration of Nguni Cattle. As an artist, my eyes were opened to the sheer beauty of this breed of cattle. Their colour patterns are like no other. The graceful shape of their horns and the wildness of their spirit make them fascinating to watch and to paint. Marguerite has explored the importance of the naming of the different colour patterns to the Zulu People, revealing poetic examples such as "the cow that is clouds". the cow that is "the caterpillars of the marula tree" and "the bull that is the Martial Eagle". It will be a stunning book. How is your voice unique and different from the voices of other talented South African authors? What makes your work stand out and be noticed? This is impossible for me to answer. Your work obviously speaks for South Africa in many emotional ways. Is this the voice you want to keep? Is there another voice waiting to be heard? South Africa is my Homeland and I am fiercely protective of it. My heart lies in its soil, the colour of its sky, the shape of its horizons and the exquisite detail of its varied components. My response to its beauty is as inseparable as the air I breathe; and if I change it in any way, it will be to include more of its remarkable people. Readers can contact Leigh Voigt via email at: leighvoigt@mweb.co.za |
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