Can Themba and Sophiatown: A story of defiance and defeat in the 'Paris of Transvaal'

The journalist Can Themba spent the best years of his life in Sophiatown, writes Pearl Boshomane

To tell the story of Sophiatown is to tell the story of Can Themba. Both were spirited rebels of their time. And both ran out of luck.

Sophiatown - or Kofifi, as it was called by those who loved it - triggers nostalgia and images of a place that was an anomaly in apartheid South Africa.

The mere mention of its name calls to mind jazz clubs, young Miriam Makebas and Dolly Rathebes in gorgeous dresses, Gerard Sekoto paintings, and Drum magazine's golden era. Sure, there were gangsters, but it was nonetheless a sanctuary for many from the realities of apartheid.

For those familiar with his work, the name Can Themba is as evocative as the suburb of Johannesburg in which he spent the best years of his life. Themba, a journalist at Drum, was a charismatic writer whose wit and street smarts were a shield against a system hellbent on destroying him and millions of others who were like him in many ways - and not like him at all.

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Although Sophiatown and Themba kicked the system in the teeth, in the end the apartheid regime won: Kofifi was razed and Canodoise Daniel Themba was driven to an alcohol-fuelled early death in exile.

Sophiatown was his muse. In his 1959 tribute essay "Requiem for Sophiatown", he called it "the little Paris of the Transvaal", a place of "swarming, cacophonous, strutting, brawling, vibrating life ... It was not all just shebeeny, smutty, illegal stuff. Some places it was as dreams are made on."

He recounted his adventures with photographer Bob Gosani, and the characters he encountered.

Of a shebeen queen he identified only as Fatty, he wrote: "She was a legend. Gay, friendly, coquettish, always ready to sell you a drink. And that mama had everything: whisky, brandy, gin, beer, wine - the lot. Sometimes she could even supply cigars. But now that house is flattened. I'm told that in Meadowlands she has lost the zest for the game. She has even tried to look for work in town. Ghastly."

He described Rathebe singing to him at a shebeen called Mabeni's: "[She] sang the blues to me. I didn't ask her. She just sidled over to me on the couch and broke into song. It was delicious."

What was also delicious was Themba's writing, his way with words. And so dedicated was he to those words that he often worked into the dead of night, tapping away on his typewriter while his wife slept.

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Although his investigative articles in Drum earned him attention, he is best known for his short story The Suit, published in 1963.

At face value, the story - which artist and academic Pitika Ntuli ranks among those of Dostoevsky and Kafka - is about a couple dealing with the aftermath of the wife's infidelity.

But it is more than that. It is a study in the cruelty people often subject their loved ones to, the lengths to which a shattered ego will go to salve its wounds.

James Ngcobo, artistic director of the Market Theatre, which is staging a Can Themba season, said: "It is the quintessential love story written by a black writer. What happened between them? How can something that looks like such utopia have such rot inside it?

"We could not miss this opportunity to celebrate a writer that has inspired so many writers."

The Suit will be staged in April and an adaptation of Themba's story Crepuscule will be presented at the Playhouse in Durban.

Ngcobo said The House of Truth, which has received rave reviews, triggered the Market's "Can Themba avalanche".

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The one-man play about Themba's life, magnetic personality, sociopolitical commentary and the realities of the time he lived in, was written by Siphiwo Mahala and stars veteran actor Sello Maake Ka-Ncube. The title is Themba's nickname for his beloved Sophiatown apartment at 111 Ray Street.

Maake Ka-Ncube's compelling performance draws you into Themba's world, gradually revealing his soul which at first seems untouched by the harshness of the apartheid system but in reality is wounded and overwhelmed by it. His writing career has come to an end (he was fired from Drum) and his teaching career hangs in the balance .

"I tried to depict the story of Can Themba as close to reality as possible," said Mahala, who is also working on a documentary about the writer's life called A Teacher in the Newsroom.

"His fullest potential was never realised. His life took a horrid turn. He was frustrated in the newsroom in more or less the same way as he was frustrated in the classroom.

"Can Themba is a man who reinvented himself by imparting knowledge and skills to others. He is the man who taught literature in shebeens, hired to teach English language to families, and groomed young journalists. He opened his house to the people of Sophiatown - with the exception of snobs - as a forum for debate and intellectual engagement."

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What set Themba's writing apart, said Ngcobo, was its multifaceted nature.

"Our stories as black people are not only stories of the struggle. We also have to see a boy falling in love with a girl. We can't only tell stories about pain. Those are the two beautiful flip sides of the Can Themba coin: that he will throw a painful dart through your heart but at the same time massage you with such promise of eternal love.

"If we're not celebrating Can Themba, then who are we celebrating?"

Themba was driven from South Africa in 1963, and his work was banned by the government. He was not allowed to be published or quoted in print.

Lewis Nkosi, a Drum contemporary, wrote: "[It] must have been a considerable blow to a writer who considered himself the poet laureate of the urban township of South Africa or its new vital, literate proletariat."

Themba spent his last years in Manzini, Swaziland, where he struck up a close friendship with Father Angelo Ciccone, a Catholic priest. In a 2013 interview with Drum Ciccone said: "He spent most of his days in the library, teaching, in church or in his room ... He was a lonely man and I was his only friend here."

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The grief at being separated from his family and homeland led him to his grave in 1968 at the age of 43.

Nkosi wrote: "Can Themba's own anguish and despair led to a suicidal kind of living which was bound to destroy his life at a relatively young age."

In retrospect, Themba's words on the aftermath of the forced removals in Sophiatown had all the hallmarks of a tragic prophecy: "I do not like the dead eyes with which some of these ghost houses stare back at me. One of these days I, too, will get me out of here."

Tonight is your last chance to see 'The House of Truth' at The Market