Barbara Boswell: Growing into her power, one word at a time

What does it mean to be a woman in contemporary SA?
Being a woman in this country means having to navigate high rates of gender-based violence such as domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape. It can happen to anyone at any time, and many women live their lives in fear of it. We make ourselves smaller each day to avoid such violence. This means the promise of democracy, of freedom for all South Africans, has been deferred for those of us not guaranteed the safety and security of the person the constitution promises us. Being a black woman means intersectional violence also shapes our lives. For example, violence against black men also affects us as mothers, partners or sisters. Many of us who are working class still suffer the structural violence that remains in our country as the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

Which book by a South African woman writer made the single biggest contribution to your literary work?
It is impossible for me to think of a single biggest contribution because I have been shaped in my thinking by so many women writers. The main one would be Bessie Head, whose work allowed me to see the potential in myself as a writer. I write in conversation with many other women writers such as Zoë Wicomb, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Buchi Emecheta, Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo, whose feminist fiction transformed my idea of myself, Africa and the world at a young age. My writing is also indebted to feminist critics such as Pumla Dineo Gqola, Gabeba Baderoon, Yvette Abrahams, Elaine Salo, Desiree Lewis and Amina Mama, whose indigenous feminist theories about gender, sexuality and womanhood have inflected my own work and allowed me to build my own body of writing, shaped by their ideas. Other writers who have profoundly influenced me with the beauty of their prose are Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston, whose works form part of the US literary tradition.

Margaret Atwood wrote: “A word after a word after a word is power.” How do you reclaim your power as a woman writer in SA?
As a woman, I have never been powerless, so there is no need for me to “reclaim” my power. Yes, as a child growing up under apartheid, I was oppressed and discriminated against, but now, as an adult, I do not regard myself as powerless. Instead, I choose to think of myself as continuing to grow into the fullness of my power during my lifetime. What this means for me as a writer is being able to write on the subjects that matter to me, such as gender-based violence, feminism, art, spirituality, and beauty. My power lies in being able to articulate, through storytelling, critiques of the powerful and how they abuse their power and privilege by oppressing others.