The reading culture behind the Karoo’s literary festivals

Karoo literary festivals connect contemporary books with a much older culture of storytelling. They might seem like a recent addition to Karoo life, but they reflect a region that has long used words to cross distance.

The Karoo seems an unlikely centre of literary life. Its population is scattered across towns that are separated by long distances, and much of its history took place far from South Africa’s publishers and metropolitan newspapers.

But books have occupied an important place in the region for generations. Today’s literary festivals are relatively new, but they have grown from older traditions. The festival programme might simply be its latest chapter.

Stories before books

The literary history of the Karoo predates European settlers or the first novels that appeared in print. Khoekhoe, San and Xhosa communities preserved their histories, ecological knowledge and spiritual beliefs through oral storytelling and song.

Among the most important surviving examples are the |Xam narratives recorded during the nineteenth century. Many of the speakers whose words were documented came from the Northern Cape interior. Their stories contain detailed observations of animals, weather, hunting and human relationships with the land.

These narratives preserve something of an intellectual world that existed long before the Karoo acquired libraries or book festivals.

The church brought the printed word

Many Karoo towns developed around Dutch Reformed congregations and mission stations. Religious life placed a strong emphasis on reading, particularly the ability to read the Bible.

Books were expensive and difficult to transport but were treated with unusual gravity. A family might own only a small collection consisting of a Bible, hymnbook, devotional works and perhaps an almanac. These texts were read repeatedly and shared between generations.

Mission stations also became centres of literacy, and helped create communities in which reading and writing offered access to religious and political life.

Libraries crossed the distance

As towns became more established, reading rooms and public libraries began appearing across the interior. These institutions allowed isolated communities to partake in the conversations happening in the wider world.

Prince Albert’s first Leesfees was held in 2012 as part of the local library’s 150th anniversary. This places the library’s origins at around 1862, when the town was still young and travel to the Cape coast required considerable time and expense.

Libraries overcame the remoteness of Karoo life through novels and journals, so that residents could encounter political movements and cultural arguments taking place far beyond the mountain passes.

The Karoo’s distances strengthened the value of reading. Where journeys were difficult and visitors infrequent, a book could travel further than its owner.

Local newspapers created a shared conversation

Small-town newspapers became another important part of the region’s reading culture. They reported council decisions and church news along with obituaries and accounts of local disputes.

These publications helped geographically scattered people imagine themselves as part of one community. A farmer living many kilometres outside town could follow municipal arguments and social events through the same pages read by a shopkeeper or teacher in the main street.

Newspapers also recorded the everyday Karoo in a way that formal histories couldn't by preserving records of drought, livestock disease, school concerts, political meetings and personal feuds - all immortalised in the written word.

The Karoo became a literary setting

The region eventually moved from being a place where people read to one through which South Africans interpreted the country.

Olive Schreiner spent formative years in the Karoo and placed its farm landscape at the centre of The Story of an African Farm, published in 1883. Her work used the apparent emptiness of the veld to explore power and personal freedom.

Many others followed. Cradock and the surrounding Eastern Cape interior are associated with writers and thinkers including Guy Butler, Etienne van Heerden, EKM Dido, Karel Schoeman, George Weideman, Clinton V du Plessis and Neville Alexander. Athol Fugard’s relationship with Nieu-Bethesda added a deeper note to this Karoo writing tradition.

Afrikaans literature drew deeply from the region. The farm novel, memoir, short story and poem turned its droughts and family histories into recurring symbols. English and isiXhosa writers approached the same interiority from different positions, revealing that there was never only one literary Karoo.

Why festivals belong here

Richmond’s BoekBedonnerd, the Prince Albert Leesfees and Cradock’s literary gatherings brought older practices together in a modern form.

The library became a venue and the hotel dining room took on the intimacy of a reading circle, while conversations once conducted through newspaper letters happened face to face. Historic houses and stoeps allowed literature to return to the place from which many stories had emerged.