“The beautiful thing about literature is that it allows room for so much in such a compact form,” says South African poet Koleka Putuma, who investigates layers of identity focusing on the narrative of Black queer women.
In the introspective journey of crafting the collection of poetry “Hullu, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come In,” Koleka Putuma delves into the layers of identity – as a black, queer, South African woman frequently traveling in Europe. In her work, Putuma contemplates issues of negotiating space, visibility, and invisibility:
“I wanted to think about other women who possibly had to do this negotiation with space, with performance, with being looked at, with being made invisible at times, and what visibility means and how you negotiate with all of these things,” she says.
The text unfurls as a tapestry exploring what remains seen or unseen, inviting readers to witness the drafting and editing behind the final published work. Beyond personal exploration, the narrative touches upon the reality faced by many creatives, especially black women, concerning ownership and rights to their work:
“I started to go through a lot of the black women who are in politics, in entertainment, in performance, who were celebrated, who were lauded across the world in different ways, but when they died or when they came to the end of their life, the fruits of their labor, all of the hard work that they had done, a lot of the royalties or a lot of the things that they had worked for didn’t go towards them or to their families. And so there’s just so many people in the chain who benefit from the work from the labor that we often put into as creatives,” Koleka Putuma says in the video.
This collection seeks to understand the nuances of one’s narrative control but also serves as an experiment, an attempt to redefine legacies, and a quest to comprehend one’s place within the continuum of women who’ve come before. Through the power of literature, particularly poetry, the author aspires to widen the world’s understanding of South Africa, unraveling its intricacies, struggles, joys, and multifaceted experiences lived within its borders:
” Particularly with poetry, you can make people see things they didn’t necessarily see before. You can open up the world a little bit more and help people understand from a firsthand account of the experiences or some people’s experiences of living in a country or living in a space: What people’s grievances are, what their pains are, but also what their joys are. I guess the beauty of literature is that you can open up a book from a place and begin to understand things differently or see them anew, “Putuma concludes.
Koleka Putuma (born 1994) is an award-winning theatre practitioner, writer, and poet based in Cape Town, South Africa. Her bestselling debut collection of poems, the prize-winning ‘Collective Amnesia’ was translated into numerous languages. In 2021 came her second poetry collection,’ Hullo Bu-Bye Koko Come In,’ which Koleka Putuma reads from in the video. Her theatre works include ‘UHM,’ from 2014, ‘Woza Sarafina,’ in 2016, and ‘Mbuzeni,’ from 2017/8. Koleka Putuma is a Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative finalist for theatre, a Forbes Africa Under 30 Honoree, recipient of the Imbewu Trust Scribe Playwriting Award, Mbokodo Rising Light award, CASA playwriting award, and the 2019 Distell Playwriting Award for her play No Easter Sunday for Queers, which has since been published by Manyano Media. Learn more through the artist’s website: https://www.kolekaputuma.com
Koleka Putuma was interviewed by Signe Boe Pedersen in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival in August 2022, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.
Cameras: Jarl Therkeldsen Kaldan
Edit & produced by: Signe Boe Pedersen
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2024
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