C.J. ('Jonty') Driver has published six collections of poems (the first shared with Jack Cope), five novels (the first, Elegy for a Revolutionary, in 1968, and the latest, Shades of Darkness, in 2004) and a biography, Patrick Duncan, South African and Pan-African (published first in 1980, immediately banned in South Africa - like his first two novels - but re-issued in 2000). His latest publication is the Selected Poems 1960-2004, under the title So Far. He writes occasionally for periodicals such as The Yale Review, The Times Literary Supplement and Slightly Foxed, the 'quarterly for real readers'.
C.J.Driver had an essay in The Yale Review for January 2010 (Vol 98, No 1) "As Guided by Palinurus - 'A Way You'll Never Be': memories of Cyril Connolly". Slightly Foxed No 24 Winter 2009 had his article on Nigel Balchin's novel, The Small Back Room.
In June 2010 he attended the "Worlds 2010" literary conference organised by the Writers' Centre of Norwich at the University of East Anglia, and was one of the four readers (with J.M.Coetzee, Joe Wicomb and Gabeba Baderoon) at an evening of South African readings at the Norwich Playhouse.
The one who should have been the first,
My mother lost at thirteen weeks.
My parents saved his name for me
And one there sleeps, and one here wakes.
I wonder what he might have been
Since what I am would not exist.
What little gap there seems to be
Between my body and the dust.
So when I’m dead (as dead as him)
Will I then seem as never born?
A shadow lost when lights went out?
A matchhead struck which didn’t burn?
Abundance thrives despite our loss:
The glass reflects, the glass refracts -
My brother’s flesh and my own self
Still suppositions more than facts.
(first published in the
Jonty Driver
Photo: Ellen Elmendorp
