This is something that happens in SA universities-even well-resourced ones. There is little understanding or recognition that like all artists, writers are part of a precarious gig economy and are the last group who should be prevailed upon to make up a financial deficit. 1/ https://twitter.com/AfrolitSansFro1/status/1294309568097464320

Our country's education sector is under horrible pressure. Texts are expensive and access is impossible for many. I know this. We all do. But expecting a writer to be the one to shoulder that burden is absurd. 2/

It's an honour to have something prescribed but it's a horrible feeling to find out that not only your work has been pirated, but the expectation is that you sbe grateful that it was prescribed in the first place remains. /3

This expectation is especially pronounced for black writers/ writers of colour because you know mos...4/

The relationship between a writer and a researcher, between a creative and the academy can be a beautiful one; mutually beneficial, intellectually rich, creatively fulfilling. But it's also a financial one. 5/

The academic prescribing the text (especially if it is written by someone on the margins, someone asking difficult questions) is doing something terrific and important by introducing the writer to students and colleagues. 6/

But crucially, their own research is also being enriched. Often, if that text is new, it will speak to their students with meaning and animating urgency. The difference is that the academic is waged and the writer is not. 7/

When I prescribe a text that is freely available or a part or a playtext that I know is easy to photocopy, I invite the writer in for a paid Q and A with the students. This obviously isn't perfect, but its something. 8/

A text can take /years/ to write/stage/publish. It's very rare that there is a reasonable relationship between work done and money made. 9/

Literary texts, notoriously, do not sell brilliantly, especially in SA where texts are prohibitively expensive, which is why having something prescribed is such a big deal. 10/

This is not to say that the financial burden for purchasing should fall squarely on the students but that it should be a serious conversation at an administrative and budgetary level at universities. /11

Because writers are a crucial part of the intellectual project. If they're not writing, because it's no longer financially viable to do so, then there are no new texts to prescribe./12

It's a time of huge vulnerability for artists and an opportunity to think seriously about how we value our writers, our storytellers, about how they contribute to knowledge production and about how we can shift a culture around buying books. /13