Thursday 16 July 2009

The magic of Africa

The magic of Africa is its rhythm of timelessness however urgently it may express itself. See it personified in the attitude of the man spending hours absorbed in the doing of nothing. See it reflected in the ritual of people talking to one another, the way bodies then move to positions of acceptance and of ease. The mystery of Africa is not in its darkness, nor in what the albinos consider its unexplored, dim past, nor even in its huge but untapped human potential, let alone its propensity for massive dying. No, the essence of Africa is in its clarity, its bareness, its horizons burned clean of history and of time. It is so clear, so natural, that it becomes incomprehensible. I had to come here to insert space, to make the inner construction a little more impervious to time. To blow the mind.
Breyten Breytenbach: Return to Paradise

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