Professor Grant Farred’s book, The Perversity of Gratitude, delves into complex themes surrounding memory, identity and the long-term impacts of apartheid in South Africa.
In this Q&A, Farred shares his insights into his writing process, his experiences during apartheid-era Cape Town and the lessons he learnt from his time at Livingstone High School.
Q: You attended Livingstone High School during the turbulent years, 1976 to 1980. How did that period in your life, with the political unrest and school boycotts, shape your ideas and inspire the themes in your book?
A: In many ways, it would be true to say that I began to craft, that is, to think, The Perversity of Gratitude from the very first moment I entered 100 Lansdowne Road, the home of Livingstone High School (LHS). Not literally, of course, but my initiation into the institution demanded contemplation, and, above all, an accounting for my experiences.
Q: You mention that the book chose you and you were its instrument. Could you elaborate on that idea and how it shaped the writing process for you?
A: A former colleague remarked, insightfully: “We don’t choose books. Books choose us” thereby suggesting that we are chosen by the books we end up reading.
Analogically, I would say Perversity is the book that chose me to write it. Perversity determined that it would be written, and that I was, as it were, its instrument.
The book insisted on being brought into the world. My job was to make sure that it was made to manifest.
Q: You reflect on the difficulty of writing your book and how it took nearly 50 years to complete. Why do you think it took so long for Perversity to come into being?
A:I wrote Perversity to honour my teachers and pay tribute to the lives my contemporaries have made.
However, it required decades of grappling with truths that only writing could bear. Thinking is punctual only to itself. The book would be written when I was able to address, among other things, the struggles and dialectics of apartheid, my time at Livingstone, and what it meant for a working-class boy from Hanover Park to undertake such a writing.
Q: You discuss the Coloured Affairs and Bantu Affairs departments in your book. Could you explain what these were and how they influenced your thoughts on identity during apartheid?
A: The concept is ‘anamnesis,” or the act of recalling things that are meant to be forgotten. The common understanding of apartheid is that it was an educational violence imposed on disenfranchised communities. An accurate assessment, unquestionable.
But Perversity suggests that thinking can bring to light that which has long remained unthought. In order to reach reality, Fredric Jameson argues, we must go beyond experience. ‘Perversity’ attempts to uncover a philosophical reality of which apartheid was entirely ignorant — something that was unthinkable not only for those who enforced it but also for those who endured. My time at LHS and the English Department at the University of the Western Cape was marked by a rigorous training in thinking, a practice radically at odds with the intentions of apartheid’s educational policies. The National Party never intended to foster thinking among the disenfranchised. ‘Perversity’ shows that is did so, if only inadvertently.
In ‘Perversity’ I’m trying to bring to light—what Heidegger would call ‘bringing into the clearing’—the very aspects of apartheid education that were meant to be erased from memory. It’s ironic, even perverse, that the system that sought to suppress thought and knowledge became the training ground par excellence for thinking. Apartheid failed in this regard; it didn’t anticipate that its educational system would endow the disenfranchised with the power of the dialectic. That’s why the opening line of my book is so historically counterintuitive: ‘Apartheid made me think.’ The regime had no idea what it was unleashing. In its very attempt to foist ‘gutter education’ on the disenfranchised it created the conditions for a remarkable intellectual ferment. Out of such ferment, thinking.
Q: You express your desire to provoke thinking and your preference for tactile learning, like reading physical books and marking them up. In a digital age, where technology dominates education, how do you believe tactile methods can still play a crucial role?
A: The tactile nature of the physical book and the process of marking these books up offer an intimacy with the text that digital methods can’t replicate. Touch creates a relationship with the material object, imbuing the words with life, allowing you to make the text your own. In a time when screens mediate everything, the tactility of the book is a grounding experience that facilitates thinking.
Q: One idea you discuss is that ‘gratitude is the gift of debt that had no intention of being created.’ Could you explain what you mean by this? How does this unexpected debt fit into the larger story of gratitude in your book?
A: The apartheid regime had no idea what it was unintentionally creating. By imposing severe educational restrictions on the disenfranchised, it provided the conditions for a philosophical flowering.
In trying to enforce a limited curriculum that aimed to keep us unprepared for a rapidly changing world—marked by decolonization, the Cold War, technological advances, and economic shifts—it, ironically, made a Coloured Affairs Department school such as LHS a breeding ground for thinking. Activism was taken for granted.
We, the students, found ourselves perversely privileged by history’s strange workings, instructed by teachers who, despite having to follow the CAD curriculum, simultaneously educated us beyond it. They prepared us not only to pass exams but also to engage with a broader, modern canon of ideas and history. This ‘dual education’ felt like a gift—courtesy of apartheid, an accident of history. It’s as if history played a trick on the regime. The fact that ‘Perversity’ came to be is a philosophical testament to that irony—a post ipso facto reminder that the system’s attempt to suppress knowledge ended up nurturing it instead.
Q: In one chapter, ‘Against Commonsense,’ you say that apartheid-era Cape Town was where you felt you belonged. That seems surprising—can you explain why you felt that way during such a difficult time?
A: Apartheid Cape Town was a place where, despite the imposed hardships, there was an undeniable sense of belonging through resistance. It is where my intellectual life took root, surrounded by like-minded peers and teachers who nurtured and challenged me. Difficult, for sure, but a gift for which I remain grateful.
