Darryl David to present Alan Paton lecture at UKZN
Author and founder of the Midlands Literary Festival will discuss the theme of the priest in literature
Darryl Earl David, founder of the Midlands Literary Festival, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Alan Paton lecture on Friday, June 5 at 11am.
The topic to be discussed is the traditional or conventional literary theme of the priest in Cry, The Beloved Country and other selected novels.
David is an alumnus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and went on to serve as head of Afrikaans and later head of English, with a distinguished career spanning 25 years at the University.
He is widely recognised for his pioneering contributions in the field of literary tourism in South Africa, and is regarded as one of the country’s most experienced curators of literary festivals.
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Among these is the Alan Paton Literary Festival, hosted by the Alan Paton Centre on the Pietermaritzburg campus of UKZN.
He also played a leading role as director of the successful bid for Durban to be designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2017; and was instrumental in establishing the Karoo town of Richmond as the only Book Town on the African continent a decade earlier.
David has published nine books to date and is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the English Academy of Southern Africa Gold Medal for his contribution to English Literature, as well as the Neville Alexander Prize for his lifelong contribution to Afrikaans.
He currently lectures in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape and is affiliated with Rhodes University as a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of English in Africa.
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The respondent for this year’s lecture is David Attwell,s Professor Emeritus at the University of York, where he was head of the Department of English and Related Literature.
He is also an Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape, a teacher, literary critic, and historian of South African literature.
His books include J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, a finalist for the Alan Paton Prize; The Cambridge History of South African Literature, co-edited with Derek Attridge; Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History; and Bury Me at the Marketplace, the collected letters of Es’kia Mphahlele, co-edited with Chabani Manganyi.
The lecture will be presented on the Microsoft Teams platform. To get the link contact Pamela Adams at [email protected] or Namisile Zuma at [email protected]
