I first met Valanga Khoza at a school literary festival in 2000. We had both been invited to perform for the students, but while I merely had a modest pile of books tucked under my arm to read from, I noticed Valanga at the other end of the car park, struggling to unload an unwieldy jumble of musical instruments from the back of his VW Kombi. I dashed over to help him and as Valanga likes to say, that was the serendipitous beginning of our friendship.
Later that afternoon, I was fortunate to see him perform to a hall full of students, and sat among them, mesmerized by his extraordinary storytelling: part song, part music-making and part traditional folk tale, which I later discovered Valanga made up on the spot.
“You should write those stories down!” I told Valanga, while helping him carry his collection of djembes, kalimbas and marimbas back to his van. “They’re fantastic!”
“You should write them down!” Valanga laughed in his great booming voice. “You’re the writer!”
So we decided I would. I approached a publisher I had recently been working with and pitched the idea to her. She loved the idea and we set about trying to transcribe some of his stories to paper. Valanga and I tried many times over a period of several weeks, but every time we wrote a story down, we seemed to lose the freshness and rhythm of his unique storyteller’s voice and the end result was flat and lifeless. Eventually, after turning up in our editor’s office with yet another story that ‘wasn’t quite there’ we decided the best thing to do would be to sit in the back of a classroom while Valanga told a story to a bunch of kids and just write it down exactly as he told it.
My middle son was in grade two at the time and his teacher was more than happy for us to borrow her students for an hour to have them entertained by Valanga. Our editor and I sat at the back of the room on little chairs and furiously jotted down a story Valanga made up on the spot and, other than a little tweaking, this is pretty much exactly as it appears in Gezani and the Tricky Baboon. With Valanga’s gorgeous storytelling voice intact.
Next, I spent several months trying different illustration styles to suit the text and eventually came across a book of traditional African house painting, full of photos of mud huts lovingly decorated with tribal patterns in natural pigments ground from ochre and rock. I decided I would aim to recreate the feeling of this traditional painting style in my own illustrations while creating a set of characters children would find comic and appealing.
The book was eventually finished in 2003 and a hardback edition was released in September of that year, dedicated to one of Valanga’s daughters and my two eldest sons. It sold fairly well, gaining good reviews and a great reception in schools, but eventually went out of print a few years later. Every couple of years after that, Valanga and I would approach our publisher asking if they would consider reprinting a paperback edition of the book. After all, it was Valanga’s only published work and as he performs in front of hundreds of school kids a year, it seemed a wasted opportunity for him not to have a book to sell. Unfortunately our publisher wasn’t able to commit to a new print run.
Unwilling to let the book disappear completely, we considered self-publishing, but knew that we didn’t have the contacts or facilities to do a proper job of the marketing and distribution. So, we approached Ford Street Publishing to ask if they would be interested in co-publishing the book with us. We agreed that we would buy enough books to cover half the printing costs and in return Ford St would market the book and distribute it under their list.
The new edition comes out this year and we are thrilled be able to launch it at Playfest. We think it is the perfect book for such an occasion as it combines all the wonderful elements the festival aims to highlight: story-telling, drama and music. Valanga and I have created a performance to reenact the story and there are even a few songs that accompany the book to teach our young audiences.
I am sure every artistic collaboration has a story behind it, each one unique and fascinating in its own way, but this book feels particularly special to me. Since the first edition was released, much has happened in our lives, including Valanga adding three children to his brood, and me adding one. He is my youngest son’s god-father, and I am his youngest daughter’s god-mother, and the new edition is dedicated to these four new children. I like to think this book is a testament to our cherished friendship that, over the years, has held strong and true. Just as Valanga predicted in that school car park, all those years ago.
-- Sally Rippin
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