The world recently watched in horror the humiliation of one human being by others in the literature arena.
On 31 May 2023, France’s poetry festival, le Marché de la Poésie, otherwise also known as the Poetry Market, withdrew an invitation of renowned Cuban poet and intellectual Nancy Morejón in her capacity as honorary president of the event.
Born in 1944 in Havana to working-class parents of African extraction, Morejón graduated from Havana University, where she majored in French, and the first black woman poet to publish widely and be accepted as a professional writer, critic, and translator who is perhaps the best known and most widely translated woman poet of post-revolutionary Cuba[2]. She is, among others, the recipient of the Critic’s Prize (1986) and Cuba’s National Prize for Literature (2001).
She has taught at various universities and also collaborated with prominent musicians,
playwrights, and actors, and recently extended her artistic talents into the visual arts.
The le Marché de la Poésie festival took place from 7 to 11 June 2023 in Paris. That the withdrawal of the invitation occurred less than a week before the event is the most nauseating and insensitive inconsideration to any human being. The infuriating reason for this inhuman act by the organisers of the event is a serious indictment on the integrity of the culprits who are dismally trying to speak from both sides of the mouth.
The Board of Poetry Market publicly announced that the decision was made in response to “pressures, rumours, and attempts exerted to date, by both sides.” There couldn’t be a worst classical case of insulting people’s intelligence than this one. Besides the obvious irrationality of
the reactionaries, is the public now made to believe that Nancy Morejón has denounced her own invitation?
The truth is that the Board simply succumbed to pressure from a single individual with
support of one publicly disclosed PEN Club France’s President, Antoine Spire. Nevertheless, it is widely reported in the media that it was one Jacobo Machover, a purported hardline right-wing
Cuban activist and writer who today lives in Paris, France, who on 24 May 2023, initiated an attack on the invitation through Facebook, expressing displeasure at the honour bestowed on the Afro-Cuban counterpart as “incongruous” and having the potential to tarnish the “reputation and image” of the festival. He apparently demanded that the honor be withdrawn and declared that
the act would “contribute to the freedom of Cuba, and of course of its poetry and literature, which are the common heritage of writers and poets the world over.” Ironically, the opposite couldn’t be truer after the utter cowardice of the Board.
NWASA understands that the invitation was a product of concurrence by a collective which
displayed lack of grit to be overpowered by ill-conceived queries by few individuals, but also
demotivated necessary pedigree required for leadership. Thus, they have by their own individual and collective devices automatically disqualified their relevance in continued occupation of such honourable positions.
We particularly shine a spotlight on PEN Club France because we see the act by one artist to
dehumanise another under any guise whatsoever as equivalent to stripping one’s own humanity in reverse.
Of course, the deplorable decision by Poetry Market triggered massive lash-back from artists, writers, politicians and progressive organisations across the world. The voices are too many to mention, and may also be considered silent now that the event has passed.
However, we here in South Africa, who have endured the trauma of colonialism and its vestiges the longest in the African continent, as whose country’s Constitution makes special provision for the promotion and protection of human rights, know that vigilance against any form of attack on
human dignity will not end as long as humanity exists.
Against the afore-mentioned, we add a human touch to all the other progressive voices by
claiming and immortalising Nancy Morejón’s footprints in South Africa as a sister, aunt, mother and grandmother of African descendant over and above illustrious literary profession.
We fondly remember her visit to South Africa in the early 1990s apartheid climax as a special guest of the Congress of South Africa (COSAW); to whom some NWASA members belonged before the former organisation’s closure later.
Through South Africa’s erstwhile late National Poet Laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile as tour guide, Nancy Morejón chose not to be accommodated in hotels in preference of our homes. Among others, was the house of the late uncle of NWASA’s current Secretary-General in Begonia Road in Eersterust Township, Pretoria. Then it was Mzi Mahola’s home in Gqeberha (then Port Elizabeth) before proceeding to our other homes in Cape Town and elsewhere in the country.
We therefore echo the words of South Africa’s current National Poet Laureate and NWASA Member Dr. Mongane Serote, who in a letter to Radio Havana Cuba [Radio Havana Cuba | Prominent South African poet expresses solidarity with Cuban intellectual Nancy Morejón (radiohc.cu)] wrote thus on the saga: “As history has clearly illustrated, imperialism has been and continues to be sustained by the exploitation of human beings by other human beings, with practices such as genocides, massacres, and the oppression of the masses. Consequently, as Africans, we call on our fighting ancestors to keep us strong and optimistic, and remain in the struggle against oppression and exploitation.”
In conclusion, we call for the Board of le Marché de la Poésie to resign en masse and the new one to reinvite Nancy Morejón to the next event in the capacity originally designated! That’s the only and right humane thing to do towards the restoration of her impugned human Dignity!