Interviews: Sunday Times and Alan Paton Awards 2014

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A total of ten books were shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize 2014.

Naomi Meyer interviewed each of the shortlisted authors. The respective interviews appear alongside the relevant author images below.

Penumbra by Songeziwe Mahlangu

What inspired your book?

The book was inspired by a mental breakdown I had had.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

I am thrilled to have been nominated for this award. It means my work is worth something.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

I think South African writing is heading towards a diverse place and becoming really creative.


The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (read a review of the book here)

What inspired your book?

Violence and the 20th century. I wanted to subvert the serial killer genre, to talk about what violence is and what it does to us – femicide in particular. I wanted to portray what real serial killers are like, as the loathsome vile losers they are, and make the victims real, to make the reader feel their loss and what it means to the world. And I was interested in how the past 100 years have shaped us, from the evolution of the skyscraper and highways to civil rights and abortion, and explore how much things have changed, especially for women. Chicago was a useful stand-in for Johannesburg, with the same issues of segregation, corruption and crime, but it allowed me to play on a broader canvas. 

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance than this one?

It’s lovely. Hey, recognition matters – especially in a home game, especially up against such a hot shortlist. Heck, the longlist was amazing, and a wonderful snapshot of the diversity of South African fiction right now.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

It’s wide open. We have the opportunity to write what we like and publishers are taking risks on new voices and experimental ones and unusual stories. It’s very exciting.

The Spiral House by Claire Robertson (read a review of the book here)

What inspired your book?

An urge to tell the story of what really happened, which I found I could best satisfy by making it all up.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

In the immediate aftermath of the shortlist announcement it meant an out-of-body experience and the onset of magical thinking. I hope this nomination will mean more readers for The Spiral House and improved chances of being published again.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

South African fiction, like fiction anywhere, will continue on its flinty way, coming closer to the important things, shying away from them, building something fine over time. As we are now – the many voices, the nature of the place, the rawness of the hurts, the shared sense of survival and peril and edging towards normalcy, the crazy mix of tenderness and brutality, the humour – you could hardly design a better kitchen for the production of interesting writing.

 

Wolf Wolf by Eben Venter (read a review of the Afrikaans book here)

What inspired your book?

The father-son relationship is very complex under normal circumstances. That is the core of the Wolf, wolf story. Once on a visit to Cape Town I passed a fish and chips shop on Main Road Observatory and thought, how about if the son opens his takeaway right there? And then a mob hijacks his lovely shop. That's how my story started unfolding.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

This novel was created in Afrikaans. The nomination is, therefore, also recognition of the current vibrant status of the Afrikaans novel. That makes me happy. Of course, it's a privilege to return to the Fatherland for the award function. (If I look at koppies of the Great Karoo I think it should be Motherland.)

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

To be honest, I'm not up with the latest in English South African writing. Crime novels seem to be hot, with a bit of dystopia thrown in. “People are living there,” said one of our great playwrights. So for me the in-depth exploration of my characters, of people, against the ever-changing backdrop of politics is paramount.  

False River by Dominique Botha (read a review of Valsrivier here and another review here.)


The shortlisted books for the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction are:

The Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Social History by Elizabeth van Heyningen

What inspired your book?

The initial project was suggested by my colleague. For me it seemed a good idea, since it brought together a number of my interests: civilian life in the South African War, the social history of medicine, colonial women. I was also a little wary, though, because I knew I was intruding in an area that was very emotional for some people.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

I am thrilled and a bit stunned. But I am also pleased that history of this kind, which is not “popular”, should receive such recognition.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

Goodness, I am not sure that I am qualified to answer that! I think a difficulty is that there is much really interesting research being produced in the universities, for example on farming, the environment, the role of beer in South African society, but far too little reaches general readers. One gets bits in programmes like Shoreline, but we need far more.

 

My Second Initiation: The Memoir of Vusi Pikoli by Vusi Pikoli and Mandy Wiener

What inspired your book, Vusi?

I wanted to tell my story, particularly my experiences in government, which would hopefully translate into lessons for our young democracy, with my specific interest relating to the independence of prosecutors, the separation of powers, transparency and accountability, as well as the integrity of leaders in both the political and the administrative spheres.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

Well, I am quite excited, although it was entirely unexpected, because the book was never written with that in mind; but I am, of course, honoured and humbled by the nomination.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

I'm not going to profess to be a writer, being new in this field, so I don't know if I can offer any profound insights. What I can say, however, is that I have noticed a growing number of new writers, both young and not so young, coming on to the scene in the fiction and non-fiction genres, which can only be seen as an excellent sign for the future of writing in South Africa. Having said that, I do still think we need to further develop the culture of reading in South Africa.

 

Portrait of a slave society: The Cape of Good Hope, 1717–1795 by Karel Schoeman

What inspired your book?

 The fact that it needed to be written.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

I feel it an honour to be associated in this way with the name and the memory of Alan Paton.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

I am in no position to comment.

 

 

Richard Rive: a partial biography by Shaun Viljoen

What inspired your book?

The book started off as a chore, as a PhD I felt obliged to undertake as a part of my academic job as a lecturer at Wits University. I chose Rive, and to do a biography, as there was no biography on him, and I had known him as a comrade in struggle as well as a colleague at Hewat College of Education, where we both taught. I admired his confident, articulate and committed engagement with non-racial circles of writers, organisations like sporting bodies, and civic and teachers’ associations, but did not like his fiction all that much, nor his overbearing and affected manner. I also was intrigued by his very closed life as a gay man at a time when I was “coming out”. So I thought I was well placed, close to but also critically distant from him as a person and a writer. As I got into the research for the degree and then its transformation into a book, Rive as a writer and a person grew in my esteem, and I became more empathetic to his courageous struggles as a black writer and his dilemmas as a gay man in what Bertolt Brecht calls “dark times”.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance as this one?

Affirmation and recognition, from some of the best writers in South Africa, of a labour I spent a decade on crafting. One struggles to judge the worth, in the eyes of others, of this kind of labour one really ends up doing for oneself.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

There seems to be a tension between our celebration of the proliferation of writing, narrative, art, performance real and digital, of our sense of ourselves locally and in the world on the one hand, and our lamentation of the need for greater care in thinking about and crafting what we produce. In South Africa, and in the world, we seem to be at a crossroads – we cannot sustain the obscene division between greed and care, between the few who have and the billions who live on the  edge between survival and death. May our interventions proliferate, but in ways that foment caring, not greed.

 

A Rumour of Spring: South Africa after 20 Years of Democracy by Max du Preez

What inspired your book?

I thought it would be good for South Africans to ponder how we arrived at this point, twenty years after we became a democracy – what our gains are, what our challenges are, to get a proper perspective on who we are as a nation and what we can celebrate and what we need to be concerned about.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for a literary prize of as much importance than this one?

It is a tremendous boost for a writer to get acknowledgement for one’s work. It makes the long process of researching and writing worthwhile.

Where do you think South African writing in general is heading, if anywhere?

It is a challenge to produce writing that will inform and entertain readers enough for them to keep on buying books instead of settling for getting their information from electronic media and the internet.

 

 

 


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