Teju Cole’s story “The Island” in The New Inquiry is an interpretation of the real events of Nelson Mandela’s incarceration for 27 years on Robben Island, a photograph taken of him in the prison garden, his eventual release, and his passing at the age of 95 last week.
No doubt it has also been inspired by his own observations of Cape Town and Robben Island when he visited the city earlier this year to take part in the Open Book festival. Cole hints at the fragile nature of reconciliation in South Africa, and transformation which is not complete in Cape Town. Integrated into the story are quotes from JM Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello and Jean Améry’s At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities
A clear day in the early nineteen-eighties, for example. A man drives past the harbor of the city in which he lives. He sees docked boats, restaurants, children at play, the island sleeping in the distance. Without quite meaning to, he remembers that the island is a prison. And then, as he is a man of some imagination, he imagines something worse: that people are tortured there. It has been going on for a while.
Years pass. The rough sea of the crossing makes it feel far. The swells are huge. The ferry could sink like a stone. Our tour guide, used to it, sleeps on the journey. Soon, in less than half an hour, the ferry arrives. The prison is now a museum. There was and is a pitiful garden along a wall.
Book details
- Open City by Teju Cole
EAN: 9780571279432
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Image coutesy Collar City Brownstone