The handing over ceremony of the "El Quixote"

Mfudisi Mthimunye, two museum assistants, William Bowie, Ambassador Marais. Ms 
Martinez, Marian Marais and Rosemary Bowie.

Mfundisi Mthimuye, Madrid, Spain

Meintjeskop Ditaba No 1/1998

The Cervantes Library in EI Toboso (a small town in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) has a wide collection of copies of the book "Don Quixote de la Mancha" by Miguel de Cervantes, written in different languages and donated, signed and dedicated by Heads of State from different countries.

It is imperative to indicate that a number of Presidents, Ambassadors, groups of people, etc, signed and donated this world famous book to the library for exhibition. We (at the Embassy), saw a need to obtain a copy of this book, preferably in one of South Africa's indigenous languages, with President Nelson Mandela's signature in it so that Ambassador Awie Marais could present it to the library. 

After months of searching (search conducted by the cultural section, OA90 and the Embassy through phone calls), it came to our attention that the "EL QUIXOTE" had not been translated into any of SA indigenous languages other than Afrikaans.

 For this reason, we succeeded in securing an Afrikaans version of the last edition of the translation which was donated to us by Professor Andre Brink (who had translated this book into Afrikaans).

On Tuesday, 1997 11 18, Ambassador Awie Marais and Mrs Marais, Colonel Bill Bowie (defense attache) and Mrs Bowie and I, visited the Cervantes library at EL TOBOSO to hand over the Afrikaans version of the afore-mentioned book to Ms Natividad Martinez, the Mayoress of El Toboso.

She informed us that the Cervantes library had found a copy, which was misplaced, of "EI Quixote" in Afrikaans, signed by the previous South African,President, Mr PW. Botha. The two copies are currently placed together at a special place.

Ambassador Marais presented our copy to Ms Martinez and signed the book which registers all donation to the museum. The presentation ceremony was followed by a luncheon organized by the Mayoress of EL TOBOSO in our honour.

NB : It should be remembered that all the donated copies of "EL QUIXOTE" are translations into different languages. Currently, the library has copies of this book in 40 different languages including Afrikaans. South Africans are encouraged to translate it into other African languages.