Meet our BED Foundation Phase lecturer Nandipha Gantsho who has won the fourth City Press-Tafelberg Non Fiction Award and received R120 000 to finish her working manuscript, Throw Madam From the Train, which will be published by Tafelberg. She tells us more about the manuscript, her love for art fairs and completing two marathons.
Nadipha Gantsho’s working manuscript, Throw Madam From the Train, which recalls the decades she spent in education. The manuscript looks at how started out as a teacher and finding herself in a cultural melting pot at a predominantly Indian school. In it she offers valuable insights and solutions to South Africa’s education crisis.
Gantsho’s treatment of the manuscript impressed judges for its depth of experience of the post-apartheid condition, her beautiful writing style, its contribution to the pressing issue of education and, in particular, the challenges facing South Africa’s teachers.
The biennial award, the richest of its kind in the country, has proved to be a huge boost to the literary scene by sourcing new voices with compelling South African stories to tell. She tells us more about the manuscript and what makes her tick.
Q: How did the idea of the manuscript come about?
The working title of the book Throw Madam From the Train is a memoir about my experiences as a teacher in a rural school, interracial school, and later in a township school. In the early years of my teaching career I travelled by train between Soweto and Lenasia, which was sometimes a harrowing experience, hence, the title.
Q: What do you want to achieve with this book?
The book aims to provide a comparative view of the inequalities in the education system in South Africa from a teacher’s perspective. I feel that teachers do get unfairly blamed for the problems in education but little consideration is given to the conditions they work in: the personal struggles they face and their role as agents of change. For many teachers, teaching is a thankless job. They receive little acknowledgement for the sacrifice they make to educate the nation. The book will hopefully inspire hope and resilience in young up and coming teachers like the BEd Foundation Phase students I teach at the University of Mpumalanga (Siyabuswa Campus).
Q: What does the award mean to you?
Winning the award means that I have been granted a lifeline as the prize money will allow me to buy time off my academic duties in order to complete the manuscript. The sad reality is that the amount of work I have as an English lecturer teaching three year levels and marking essays of over three hundred students in two semesters a year without any assistance, renders any dream of writing and completing a book, let alone a research paper or PHD thesis impossible.
Q: You were chosen among the best authors. How do you feel?
I am truly humbled that the panel of judges of the entries for the non-fiction award were under the impression that my story about being a teacher in post-apartheid South Africa is a story worth telling. It shows the vision of City Press in relation to the representation of ordinary voices and its interest in issues of nationhood, democracy and education.
Q: Besides writing what else do you enjoy doing outside work?
Reading, of course, like any aspiring writer, is and has always been a favourite pastime for me. Besides that, I attend arts festivals and book fairs; with the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (Makhanda) being high in the list of events I find inspiring, entertaining and educational at the same time. I also lead a relatively active lifestyle. I go to the gym to keep fit and healthy whenever I find the time and I regularly take part in marathons.
Q: Wow you also run?
Yes. I have completed the Soweto Marathon (42.2 km) twice and the Cape Town Marathon once but I run half marathons mostly. Lately, I have dabbled in the more adventurous side of running - trail running, which I find most challenging despite the shorter distances. The fear of running into a lion or cheetah while racing in a game park scares the hell out of me but I find it thrilling.
Q: Who are your favourite authors?
Jane Austen, Doris Lessing and Chris van Wyk are some of my favourite authors. Being a literature student has also shaped my reading interest and raised my consciousness about issues such as identity, imperialism, colonialism and decolonialisation. Among the list of memorable titles are Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Grain of Wheat, Ayi Kwei Armah’s The beautyful ones are not yet born, Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Ellen Khuzwayo’s Call Me Woman. I am inspired by the work of contemporary women African writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Tsitsi Dangarembga and hope to follow in their footsteps.
Q: So where to from here?
First, I intend to give hope and inspire resilience and confidence in up-and-coming teachers by drawing on my first teaching experience. It is disheartening to find that the debate about racism in education still continues more than 24 years after the advent of democracy in our country.
The manuscript for the book is still at a conceptual stage. When City Press made the call for submissions in June 2018, the requirement for entry was one chapter and a list of chapters envisaged. I seized the opportunity as it presented a possibility of finally completing the book.
Gantsho’s love for education has led to her completing her Masters Degree in Applied English, and is currently studying towards a PhD in Language Education at Wits University.