15 questions for Lien Botha

1. If you could choose any photographer to take your portrait, who would it be?

The eccentric photographer Ronnie Levitan took this portrait three decades ago on the eve of our freedom. Today it saddens me — the photographer is long dead and our democracy has been devoured by gluttons.

2. What music do you listen to while driving? 

Music missionary Danie Marais’ dizzy playlist.

3. Your biggest fear?

To live In a Country Without Birds (R.I.P. Harry Kalmer).

4. Favourite poem? 

Maybe “Encounter” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Milosz and Lillian Vallee; NP van Wyk Louw’s “Nog in my laaste woorde”; Eugène Marais’ “Winternag”; “Verslag” by Breyten Breytenbach; Gisela Ullyatt’s “Voor ek vertrek”; “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas; and Mary Oliver’s “In Blackwater Woods”. This question is impossible to answer!

5. The best book you have read recently?

The Overstory by Richard Powers. It contains sentences that break through the intertwined lives of Homo sapiens and the arboretum-like branches.

6. How do you see the role of Afrikaans in the future?

Alive and well.

7. Who do you admire? 

People like Imtiaz Sooliman, Sir David Attenborough, Wangari Maathai (R.I.P.) and the many individuals and organisations who keep soup kitchens and kindness alive on this defenceless earth.

8. Is there a fictional character with whom you identify? Or wish you could be?

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Alice in Wonderland.

9. The qualities in yourself that you like the most? And in others?

Empathy and loyalty in both cases.

10. Choose a famous person, then choose a book to give them.

For CR and his motley crew, Homer’s Odyssey; and for Charlize Theron, the updated Groot Verseboek in which more than 44 poets attest to the vitality of Afrikaans.

11. The names of your pets?

Many wild animals pass through here regularly: baboons, mongooses, porcupines, civet cats, as well as a wide variety of birds such as spurfowls, night owls, robins, southern boubous, bulbuls, finches and sunbirds.

12. What was your favourite toy as a child?

My mother’s garden in Eeufees Street at the foot of the Magaliesberg.

13. If you could build your dream home, what would it look like and where would it be?

Veldhuis in Betty's Bay, designed by my architect husband Raymond Smith, where we have lived for several years. The modest house’s appearance is inspired by the topography of the landscape with reference to the Klein-Hangklip mountain, and has a small footprint. In summer, dragonflies hover through the rooms.

14. If you could choose any artist, living or dead, to collaborate with, who would it be?

In a parallel universe: Wim Wenders or Sophie Calle. I am currently working with the brilliant young artist Jaco van Schalkwyk and our dialogue is truly exciting. In my opinion, collab often has to do with a given context or place and the artist’s interaction with it. This was the case with Krotoa’s Room (1996), where Raymond Smith and I did an installation in the granary of the Castle, as well as Delft Blue (2015) in Bordeaux, which was aimed at a given geography and history connected to the landscape. And then there is a space that I have been dreaming about for years: Camera Oscura in San Casciano dei Bagni, Italy.

15. Your funeral song and your last meal?

Mazzy Star's Fade Into You and paella.

♦ VWB ♦

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