Before this, ever since 2003, I had developed a growing fascination with Krotoa-Eva, who rose from being a nanny in the family of Jan Van Riebeeck to becoming his most trusted interpreter and mediator in his contacts with the local Cape people during the 1650s. This spurred my interest in domestic workers, making me realise that, like Krotoa, they are go-between figures. My inaugural address as professor of South African literature at the University of Amsterdam in April 2003, was my first foray into a complex and fascinating world, the depth of which, at that stage, I had no idea. During the years that followed, funding from the Free University of Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of the Witwatersrand, where I was a research fellow, and the University of Johannesburg, where I am currently an honorary research fellow, as well as the Van Ewijck Foundation in Cape Town, enabled me to do research in South Africa and to attend conferences. A sabbatical funded by the Dutch Scientific Organisation (NWO) enabled me to work on the project full-time for twelve months in 2008/2009.
Colleagues at both Amsterdam universities encouraged and inspired me. Fellow participants at conferences in South Africa, as well as peer reviewers and editors of literary and sociology journals in which my first articles on slavery novels and domestic worker characters appeared, helped to focus my thoughts. A request I received to write about domestic work as a ‘place of memory’ was the inspiration for research into a family archive: my grandmother’s photo albums. After that, in 2010, I had several productive meetings with Wits sociologist Shireen Ally and artist Mary Sibande, and this in turn led to international exposure of my memory-article in the South African Review of Sociology and De Gids, with the assistance of translators Libby Meintjes and Riet de Jong-Goossens.
Through the years, dedicated librarians have assisted me: at the William Cullen library at Wits, where I spent many happy weeks researching; in Cape Town’s South African National Library and the Iziko Social History Centre on Church Square, as well as the Huisgenoot-archive and in the small public library in Kloof Street. Corine de Maijer, librarian of the Zuid-Afrikahuis in Amsterdam, has for close on two decades been an anchor providing consistent support, advice and friendship.
Discussions with former colleagues at Wits (Gerrit Olivier, Isabel Hofmeyr, Penny Siopis, Sarah Nuttall, Achille Mbembe and Irma du Plessis) were critical during this process, and Gerrit was especially generous in sharing his thoughts and helping to tighten the Afrikaans manuscipt. I have much admiration for the work done by Wits professors Jacklyn Cock and Shireen Ally in their groundbreaking studies, Maids and Madams (1980) and From Servants to Workers (2010). Many people have, over the years, provided input in different ways. Even in the most cursory of conversations, South Africans – domestic workers as well as employers – were eager to share their experiences and insights with me. It is with gratitude that I remember Marietjie Joubert, who often extended hospitality to me during my research, and in whose home Hilda Ntsowe cared for Marietjie until her death, before Hilda herself went home to Botswana. I also stayed in the home of my friend Elsie Cloete, whose threshold her helper Melidah Sehlola regularly crossed. In Cape Town I spent many months in the home of Annari van der Merwe, where I got to know Francis Magxa and Nikiwe Feni. I am grateful to Annari for her input at an early stage of the conceptualisation of Like Family. I had several valuable conversations with Elsa Joubert about her various domestic worker characters, and a useful discussion with Sindiwe Magona while seated next to her on a bus tour through Cape Town’s once-flourishing District Six.
The writing of my friends, Marlene van Niekerk and Ingrid Winterbach, present me with continual challenges – indeed, nowhere has the complexity of the serving relationship been so thoroughly rendered as in Marlene’s Agaat, which is why I decided to concentrate on city novels and to step away entirely from farm novels. Ingrid’s characters Faith, Ruta, Hazel and Mrs Sekete inspired me to look into the tiniest corners of various novels to see what such characters were up to, and what roles they play in the narrative. A few months before the completion of Soos familie, Antjie Krog told me about her series of poems, ‘servants talk’, which were due to be published in the volume Synapse. Sending me the poems shortly before publication provided incentive and impetus in finalising my book. The invitation by another old friend, Marlene Dumas, to speak about her painting, ‘Martha – die bediende’, during a walkabout in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in October 2014, was a memorable inspirational moment.
Sindiwe Magona, Antjie Krog, Gerrit Olivier, Ingrid Winterbach, Carrol Clarkson, Hanneke Stuit, Marlene Dumas, Esther Peeren, Pamela Pattynama, Jacqueline Bel, Adriaan van Dis, Myrtle Witbooi, Maaike Meijer, Karin Ratering Arntz, Babs Boter, Ton van Strien, Ingrid Glorie, Hannes Visser, Marva Basson, Karin de Wet, Kabous Meiring and Hannes van Wyk all contributed generously to the lively promotional launches, symposia and interviews for the Afrikaans and Dutch editions of the book.
The presence of Myrtle Witbooi, general secretary of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union, at my farewell lecture in Amsterdam meant a great deal to me, as did her endorsement of the way in which the voices of domestic workers are conveyed in Like Family. As president of the International Domestic Workers Federation, Myrtle Witbooi had just attended a conference in Rotterdam, and so – having given her Soos familie in Salt River earlier that year – I was able to present her with the first edition of Bijne familie. That afternoon, on 17 June 2016, my farewell lecture at the University of Amsterdam was titled ‘From Thandi the Nanny to Thandi the Madam’ – the latter being a character in a novel by Zukiswa Wanner.
Marlene Dumas’s ‘Martha’ (1984) and paintings such as Irma Stern’s ‘Maid in Uniform’ (1955) tempted me to include a chapter on the intriguing genre of ‘portraits of servitude’, but that would have taken me beyond the scope of the book’s largely literary focus. Like Family has benefited enormously from artists’ generosity in granting me permission to use their work, and I am indebted to Dumas, Keith Dietrich, Claudette Schreuders and Mary Sibande; photographers David Goldblatt, Huw Morris and Zanele Muholi; and comic-strip artist Anton Kannemeyer as well as Harry Dugmore, Stephen Francis and Rico Schacherl, the ‘Madam & Eve’ team. Dorothy Kay’s ‘Cookie, Anna Mavata’ steals the hearts of all who see her, and my thanks are due to Dirk Oegema of the Tshwane/ Pretoria Art Museum and the Kay heirs for permission to use the painting on the cover of all three editions of my book. Collectively, these representations provide insight into the subtle ways in which South African artists have, over many decades, represented and documented the lives of domestic workers.
I wish to thank Nicol Stassen of Protea Books for his faith in the original Afrikaans version of this book, and for assigning me his excellent editor, Amelia de Vaal; being awarded the UJ Prize for Creative Writing in Afrikaans in 2016 made the whole team happy. I felt honoured that Eva Cossée took on the Dutch publication with Uitgeverij Cossee in Amsterdam, and I thank Riet de Jong-Goossens for the translation. In addition, I am especially grateful for the loving and generous input of Pamela Pattynama in getting Bijna familie into excellent shape shortly before the deadline.
The English translation of Soos familie and Bijna familie presented unique challenges, as Like Family had, to a large extent, developed into a completely new book. I requested Eben Venter, Ingrid Winterbach and Ronelda S Kamfer to provide me with translations of their work, and they generously obliged. Deborah Steinmair and Patric Tariq Mellet assisted me with information at very short notice, and I am grateful to them both. The hospitality afforded me by Annemarie and Guus Balkema in Amsterdam during the final weeks of completing the manuscript is greatly appreciated.
South African friends, in particular Kate