Jos, NIGERIA - "Ninety per cent of writers don't make money."

So a good friend and mentor told me when I proudly announced that I had given up my regular job to realize my ambition as a full-time writer. He didn't stop at that, this good and wise friend of mine. He told me quite smugly that the cultural difference would work against me and that I'd be lucky to get a publisher interested in my work.

He was kind enough, though, to add that I am a determined and ambitious young lady and that these might stand me a good chance of survival.

I let him have his say. It didn't change my decision. After all, I was fired by ambition and had all these ideas waiting to pop out on paper. I didn't pay too much attention to his analysis, either. As a matter of fact, I thought he was too brutal and even wished he had kept his opinions to himself. I was like a bird, eager to fly and I didn't need anyone aiming to shoot me down before take-off. I soon realized, though, that this good friend of mine was right. The realization didn't come all at once, though. It came gradually, trickling in slowly over the next five years and taking with it each time a tiny portion of my ambition. ... READ MORE

New York, NY, USA - Though the success of "Whale Rider" -- a powerful yet simple story of a young Maori woman coming of age in the face of male discrimination -- would seem unmatchable, director Niki Caro has succeeded again in crafting a simple yet compelling story of another woman fighting against discrimination. This time she chose Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron to bring to life fictional miner Josey Aimes who resists intense degradation by the male miners while breaking the gender barrier working the Minnesota iron range. The 38 year-old Caro once again has crafted a story of triumph against the odds -- this time in a different country with such veteran actors as Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand under her sure command.

G21: How did you find out about this story?

NC: After "Whale Rider" I went back to New Zealand, I had a baby and I wanted to wait before making a second movie. I got to read many scripts, and, out of all of them, this was the only one that I couldn't put down.

G21: How close was the script to the actual story of this fight against discrimination?

NC: The script was amazing and [had] amazing flashbacks between Josey's early life and forward to the court. I felt that [screenwriter] Michael Seitzman really enlivened a story that could have been either a Lifetime movie or a sort of predictable courtroom movie and made something quite real and unusual. But there are things about the script that I felt could have been stronger, and I didn't think we could tell a story about Josey and all men without looking at her critical relationship with men, with her father and with her son. And both strong scenes, the moment where Hank speaks to Josey and when Josey admits to her son the circumstances of his conception, came out of my development. I kept on working with the writer six to nine months to incorporate those things to the script. ... READ MORE


MPHUTHUMI NTABENI ON SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY:

East London, SOUTH AFRICA - To see my country with the heart, to look at it through the haze of nostalgia -- why not? -- and mirror bright reflections of its history, is my intention in these Drifting Homewards pieces.

It is easy for me to start at PE (Port Elizabeth) because the city is the springboard and the spiritual anchor of my life. There's a place in PE called Bethelsdorp whose fame rests on the fact that it was the first missionary station in the area.

When a place becomes famous, like Bethelsdorp, a certain willful blindness sets in the minds of its admirers. All that matters is its power as an icon. The details that support its myth are pushed to the fore, while those that perplex or disrupt this image are quietly smothered. Such is the ruthless tyranny of fame.

Bethelsdorp is supposed to be a traveller's recount because of its historic ass ociation with English settlers of the early ninetieth century. It was there the London Missionary Society established its mission for the Khoyikhoyi in 1803. Since then a horde of famous and infamous settlers and missionaries have been associated and written about the place. From Van der Kemp, Henry Lichtenstein, Thomas Pringle, the Reads to poets like Thomas Baines.