Interview with Isak Dinesan

INTERVIEWER I suppose that you began to write seriously there?

DINESEN I did begin to write [in Africa] . . . But earlier, I learned how to tell tales. For, you see, I had the perfect audience. White people can no longer listen to a tale recited. They fidget or become drowsy. But the natives have an ear still. I told stories constantly to them, all kinds. And all kinds of nonsense. I’d say, “Once there was a man who had an elephant with two heads” . . . and at once they were eager to hear more. “Oh? Yes, but Memsahib, how did he find it, and how did he manage to feed it?” or whatever. They loved such invention. I delighted my people there by speaking in rhyme for them; they have no rhyme, you know, had never discovered it. I’d say things like “Wakamba na kula mamba” (“The Wakamba tribe eats snakes”), which in prose would have infuriated them, but which amused them mightily in rhyme. Afterwards they’d say, “Please, Memsabib, talk like rain,” so then I knew they had liked it, for rain was very precious to us there.

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http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4911

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