Venus Williams of the US (L) talks to her sister Serena Williams of the US after Serena won their women's singles final match on day 13 of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 28, 2017. PHOTO | AFP
But then enter the three “sisters” who did a lot to restore my faith in the greatness of the USA. The first and quite surprising one for me was Katherine B. Johnson, the NASA mathematical genius and her sisters who helped put the first American in orbit, way back in my youthful 1960s.
I must admit that I had never heard of this incredible lady, despite her having been decorated by President Obama. But, thanks to the creative and persuasive language of film, she leapt to my attention through “Hidden Figures”
The other two “sisters” will be pretty familiar to my fellow sports and, especially, tennis enthusiasts. “Down Under” in Melbourne last Saturday, Venus Williams and Serena Williams, real life sisters, battled each other in the women’s singles final of one of the biggest tennis tournaments on earth.
I love women, and I have no apologies about that. After all, “je suis un homme normal (I am a normal man)”. This is how the Malgache poet Flavien Ranaivo put it when he gladly accepted our invitation to kiss a Ms Virani, who had excelled in our French class.
We were at the University of Madagascar in Antananarivo, in 1967, polishing up our French, and Ranaivo, was guest of honour at our graduation and prize-giving ceremony. He was a minister then, but to us literati he was best known as a leading voice of the negritude movement. Along with Jean-Joseph Raberiavelo and Jacques Rabemananjara, he represented Madagascar in such landmark collections as Senghor’s Anthologie and Moore and Beier’s Modern African Poetry.
