Nedine Moonsamy, photo credit: Miriam Maina; Fluid book cover: Karavan Press
Short.Sharp.Stories is a platform showcasing top and emerging South African fiction writers. The theme of this year’s anthology is Fluid – freedom to be. Fluid, this year’s Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, seeks to engage fictional expression around identity, culture and society.
Joanne Hichens conducts interviews with the respective short story writers.
Below is a mini-interview between Joanne Hichens and Nedine Moonsamy, author of the short story “The jump” in the 2023 Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Fluid.
Nedine Moonsamy is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Johannesburg. She is currently writing a monograph on contemporary South African fiction, and otherwise conducts research on science fiction in Africa. Her debut novel, The unfamous five (Modjaji Books, 2019), was shortlisted for the IHSS Fiction Award (2021), and her poetry was shortlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award (2012) and the New Contrast National Poetry Prize (2021).
Nedine’s reading is an undeniable influence on her writing:
My story, “The jump”, serves as proof that what you read eventually spills into what you write. I conduct academic research on African science fiction, which means I read a lot of African SF, and so, despite my general creative inclinations towards realism, I found myself starting to imagine stories of this kind.
JH: Thank you for your wonderful story, “The jump”. Can you be more specific as to the reasons why you are currently “addicted” to reading science fiction?
NM: Science fiction is so compelling because it pits our best and worst qualities as humans against each other in future-oriented scenarios, and thus shows where we’re likely to head as a species. It’s like looking at ourselves through a series of distortion mirrors in a funhouse, where the world is recognisable but twisted into new and bizarre forms.
JH: Building a science fiction world takes a particular dedication. Nothing is familiar. In “The jump”, you had to, in essence, create a new world. How did you go about doing that?
NM: Science fiction world-building is an enormous undertaking because, unlike with fantasy, it has to be both familiar and “new”. The world I created took some outline from the real world, along with some research (I can drop facts about the biology of fleas at parties now), and then a dose of courage to spike it with something quite outrageous. Afterwards, I edited to make sure the plausibility of the world-building held firm throughout the entire story. In my case, there was also the learning curve of not using too many “info dumps” at once – which the editors of this collection helped to fix (thank you).
JH: (Our pleasure!) Your research on sci-fi in Africa must certainly be fascinating. For what reasons do you feel it is not only relevant, but such a rich and fertile ground?
NM: The practice of science fiction in Africa is deeply significant, because it so successfully undermines the very notion of Western science as a neutral and universal mode for navigating the world that we must then inevitably access if we ever want to form part of a more progressive human experience. Colonial denigration meant that Africans were never perceived as thinking subjects – let alone technological beings – and African worldviews, which include a wealth of ideas about indigenous perceptions of time, space, the cosmos and material technology, were dismissed as something akin to fantastic mumbo-jumbo. Yet, now, writers and artists are rediscovering these indigenous frameworks through their work by illustrating how their science fiction futures form part of a very long legacy of technological curiosity and scientific practice on the continent.
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The practice of science fiction in Africa is deeply significant, because it so successfully undermines the very notion of Western science as a neutral and universal mode for navigating the world that we must then inevitably access if we ever want to form part of a more progressive human experience.
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Moreover, these stories are so deeply resonant because alternative imagined futures mitigate pervasive feelings of Afro-pessimism on a continent where people have consistently felt robbed of the right to a future. This genre has now arrived, and it changes this feeling by extending the social imagination forward in ways that feel self-determined, progressive and deeply affirming.
JH: “The jump” is indeed such a story. Did you enjoy writing it?
NM: Yes. This was one of those stories that flowed with more ease than usual, so it really felt like I was being transported through a lovely thought experiment.
JH: On another tack, you mentioned writing a monograph of contemporary South African fiction. I’d love to know whether you have as yet reached any conclusions?
NM: South Africa is a nation that experiences constant crises and undergoes vast amounts of emotional stress, so I’m looking at how we turn to fiction to write reparative and cathartic narratives for and about ourselves. I explore how contemporary writers are experimenting with various genres like horror, crime fiction and science fiction (to name a few) in order to alleviate the strain of contemporary South African life. My hope is that this monograph will show what I love most about South African literature, and that it is a strong body of work that is unique in how it speaks to our ongoing questions of nationhood.
JH: Do you have a sense of where we are headed with South African fiction?
NM: The appeal of genre fiction still seems to be on the rise. I can see how it fulfils many functions; it draws in a much wider local reading market, while also making our stories far more relatable for a global audience.
JH: When it comes to short stories, for what reasons do you love writing the short form?
NM: The brevity leaves little room to get distracted by elaborate stories; it sharpens the focus and thus clarifies the intent of the story and characters. A well-written short story is a masterclass in timing and encourages experimentation by seeing how much one can achieve in such a short frame. I also find it helpful to think of the short story as closer to long form or prose poetry, in that the language choices and emotive beats need to be vivid and crisp so that they linger on in the life of the reader long after they’ve read the short story.
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A well-written short story is a masterclass in timing and encourages experimentation by seeing how much one can achieve in such a short frame.
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JH: And, of course, I’d like to ask you for an endorsement of initiatives such as Short.Sharp.Stories and the role they play in the South African literary scene.
NM: Short.Sharp.Stories makes an enormous difference to the lives of writers in South Africa. This initiative started well before the short story boom in South Africa, so we can definitely think of it as ahead of the curve in that regard. Most writers begin by trying their hand at short stories, so it is necessary to encourage short story publication in order to hold space for emerging and young writers. Also, I think that the choice to publish in book format is far more preferable. Short story journals don’t provide a sufficient platform for writers, since readers generally find these hard to access. Lastly, it is no secret that writing is very poorly incentivised in South Africa, and the fact that Short.Sharp.Stories pays writers is more of what we need in our local literary culture.
JH: To end, what writing tip could you as a professor of English offer emerging writers?
Becoming a writer simply requires becoming an avid and astute reader, whether you choose to write in English or in your mother tongue, which is a limited but viable option in South Africa. Reading widely gives you a critical sense of how novels work and an intuitive way to grow your vocabulary and grasp the mechanics of language.
Also, I think it’s important to know that there’s never going to be an ideal time to write. We tend to think that a moment will arrive when we’ll have more time or feel more prepared, but that moment never arrives. Begin now. Take your time. When you have a piece of writing in hand, have the courage to share it with someone who has more experience than you. Ask them to be honest with you, and mean it. Feedback is an invaluable way to improve.
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Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Robyn Perros, author of "The window display"