...And So To Football

South African author Zukiswa Wanner

It is not possible to have failed to notice that the there is a major world tournament about to start in South Africa. Also touted as the World Cup of Africa, because it’s the first time that it has taken place there, it has put both the ‘rainbow’ nation and the continent as a whole on point.

The coverage has been wide and varied, and in some instances downright rude about life in South Africa, the spiralling costs, and how the preparations for the games were going and how long it will take the country to pay of the debts that accrue. It reminds me of the run-up to the Cricket World Cup that took place in the West Indies in 2007. That was a first time that it took place there too, despite the success of the West Indies Cricket team over the years.

While I am always happy to fail Tebbit’s cricket test as a West Indies cricket team fan, for football I am always an England football fan in the first instance. Since the team, what ever you think of football does ‘represent.’  After that there is Brazil, Nigeria, Argentina, Ivory Coast, France, Spain, Italy. I am so looking forward to the opening ceremony which I hope to be able see at bar somewhere in the elegant centre of Madrid.

The Guardian ran an excellent piece about the World Cup in South Africa by David Runciman recently – read it here. If you have been avoiding reading anything about the World Cup do read this one piece – it was in the review section and is well written. [Though if you read the sports sections you’ll already know that some of the finest writing is found there.] If you have a sense that the sports world’s leading outfits such as FIFA, the Olympics and Formula One behave like ‘the new colonialists’ around the world then this is the article that will make it all clear to you.

In the article Runciman includes references to a few of books that have been published to celebrate South Africa’s World Cup.

African SoccerScapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game by Peter Alegi.

David Goldblatt’s The Ball is Round (originally published in 2006)

Africa United: How Football Explains Africa by Steve Bloomfield.

This is the cover of Zukiswa's second book, which I bought a couple of years ago in South Africa, still not read it yet!

The run-up to the World Cup has given us the chance to see some of the African writers who we would not normally hear from in UK. A few weeks ago, The Observer invited a number of South African writers to talk about their homeland, while they included Rian Malan and Gillian Slovo, there were also a couple of pieces from the black playwright Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom  (read it here) and the author and blogger, Zukiswa Wanner – read her Observer piece about her homeland here.  I agree with them both, The World Cup is not going to make life better for most South Africans, but it will bring the spirit and hopes of the nation together while the eyes of the world are on them.

Zukiswa’a new book, her third, Men of the South has just been published in South Africa, read an excerpt of it here.  All her books are set in a contemporary black middle South African world, where she provides exploration of issues, I am sure that we’ll all recognise. I hope that she is published in the UK soon.