by Stephen Langtry | Jun 27, 2021 | A Coloured Tapestry, Books, Religion
The Very Reverend Michael Weeder is the Dean of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. He published two poetry collections over the period between 2020 and 2021. I interviewed him and we reflected on his poetry and the inspiration behind some of the themes in the collections.
1
The title “Dean of the Cathedral of St George the Martyr” transports me into medieval England; the world of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. There was a time, before lunch on a Sunday, that I managed to get hold of the section of the Sunday Times that carried the instalments of the adventures of Prince Valiant. Other parts of the weekly newspaper held my attention in later years. But that is another story.
Prince Valiant was a gateway to Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and other legendary figures. Inevitably the heroes of these stories would be associated with the Crusades and battles between good and evil – fought against the background of green hills, forests and serene lakes. The English countryside was a prominent feature of my childhood literary landscape. Clergymen did not always come across well in these tales.
But we are in Cape Town and the dean is the African poet and priest, Michael Weeder. He is not perturbed by the occasional noise of the traffic that drifts into his office, and he accepts the cup of tea offered by the assistant as if it is part of a script. “No, thank you,” I had already declined the offer.
Weeder is an accomplished raconteur who regularly shares his humour and thoughtful reflections with his followers on social media. He has now, in quick succession, published two collections of poetry – Lockdown, Love and Lament (2020) and The Promise of Memory (2021).
“For me, poetry is a documentation of our lives. I have been inspired by Don Mattera and also the very intimate poetry of Jeremy Cronin,” he says. After our conversation, I look up one of Cronin’s poems that I first discovered in the now partially destroyed Jagger Library of the University of Cape Town:
Faraway city, there
with salt in its stones,
under its windswept doek,
There in our Cape Town where
they’re smashing down homes
of the hungry, labouring people
— will you wait for me, my love?
In that most beautiful,
desolate city of my heart
where if staying on were passive
life wouldn’t be what it is.
Not least for those rebuilding
yet again their demolished homes
with bits of plastic, port jackson saplings,
anything to hand — unshakably
Defiant, frightened, broken,
and unbreakable are the people of our city.
— Will you wait for me, my love?[1]
It is easy to see the similarities with the poems of Weeder. Both poets dance on the border between the public and the private. Weeder, more than Cronin, also operates in a country that has transitioned to political freedom but that has not quite shaken the shackles of socio-economic inequality and psychological (and spiritual) oppression.
2
“Some of my favourite poems are in Lockdown, Love and Lament because it comes out of the focused period of the big lockdown,” he says as he holds up the first of the two volumes. Lockdown, Love and Lament is based on his daily reflections during the Covid19 pandemic in Cape Town. It is a record of the different phases of the lockdown that was imposed on South Africans during that period. The poems range from light-hearted to thoughtful meditations, and each is accompanied by a reflection.
The national state of disaster, which President Cyril Ramaphosa declared with effect from 26 March 2020, led to the curtailment of many freedoms. Black South Africans have a history of having their liberties restricted.
Even today, neighbourhood watch groups in some of Cape Town’s southern suburbs will alert its members of Black men walking in the area because of assumptions of who belongs. I have witnessed a Black man being confronted for walking in a public space. The white man who confronted him was walking his dog.
For the first time in history white South Africans had to contend with being denied some freedoms by a majority Black government. The desire to congregate on beaches, surf in the ocean, buy cigarettes, exercise in groups in public, and buy roast chicken became rallying points for many of the middle classes who felt entitled to these activities. The irony was that some of the beaches that became sites of protest were for decades closed to Black people in South Africa. That the restrictions imposed by the South African government were not dissimilar from what was enforced in many other countries in the context of a global pandemic was lost on the protestors.
Amidst all of the rancour and anger at having to follow precautions to slow the spread of Covid19, Weeder observed acts of basic humanity. It is the particular sight of one “grey SUV [that] arrives each day at the same time” from which a person, whose face he could not see, shares food with homeless people who sleep in the rough in a park opposite the deanery that speaks to the poem, “Being.”
I remember
your voice, kind
like your eyes
and I knew
that I was seen
and what you saw
made today, and the opening
of my eyes
to the nameless sky,
a prayer on its own.
Lockdown, Love and Lament contains poems that Weeder had written over the course of his life since the age of 16. But while they are not all new poems, the reflections that accompany each poem connects the past and present and points to the promise of new beginnings.
3
I know where me from.
I feel it in de bounce of de goema drum
tho I not know a place specifically
or me first given name genealogically.
But I know where me from
under stormy, dark sky or under de laughin’ sun.
The Promise of Memory delves into the personal journey of identity. “It comes out of the peculiar and particular way in which we are African,” he says. The first poem, “I know where me from,” was inspired by an event in 1982 in London, on his first trip out of the country. On a Friday evening, he was walking with a South African exile and a young Jamaican man, who refused to acknowledge Weeder in the conversation. The South African exile “gently reprimanded [the Jamaican man] about his chauvinistic views about blackness.” Weeder appreciated this gesture and wrote this poem many years later as a response to the Jamaican.
Weeder’s views on identity resonates a lot of with the Caribbean experience. “When you are a Creole in Jamaica or Trinidad you are not up against other variations of yourself whereas the Cape Creole is defined in relation to other Africans and then we are often having to prove how African we are. And I want to contest that. When I say I am Black, it is a political identity; when I say I am African, it is the way that I am African – whether I don’t meet your criteria; that is your business. Because I am not European.”
In the aftermath of the 1994 election results in the Western Cape, Weeder and others were in shock that so many people who were classified “Coloured” under apartheid chose to vote for the same political party that was responsible for a crime against humanity. (Zoe Wicomb wrote in some detail about this in her monumental essay, “Shame and identity: the case of the coloured in South Africa.”) The contemplation that followed led to the formation of the December 1st Movement for which Weeder was asked to write a discussion paper.
The December 1st Movement had a short existence and died soon after the celebration of its first anniversary. This was mainly due to the lack of mass support from members of the Coloured community but also due to opposition from among leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) who feared that it would promote Coloured separatism.[2] Weeder says that ANC veteran, Reg September, many years later in 2005, apologised to him for not having publicly supported the movement. It was September who told him about the influence that the heritage of slavery had in the formation of early political opposition to colonialism and apartheid.
The first two days of December are important dates in the history of the Cape since they mark the abolition of slavery in 1834. Weeder was greatly influenced by Father Clive McBride (an unofficial chaplain to some adherents of the Black Consciousness Movement). McBride introduced him to the history of the National Liberation League and others who celebrated 2 December as a commemoration of the liberation of enslaved people at the Cape.
In trying to understand more about the history of slavery, Weeder read several historical accounts and came across a footnote in Vivian Bickford-Smith’s chapter in Breaking the Chains, which mentioned Lydia Williams. Lydia Williams became the subject of his Honours dissertation at the University of the Western Cape. For about four successive weekends, his wife and children would bundle into his car and drive with him from Lotus River to Maitland cemetery to search for Williams’s gravesite. He found it eventually.
Lydia Williams occupied the role of a griot among her people. Like Father McBride, she marked an annual commemoration of the emancipation of enslaved people on 2 December. In her small cottage, she would host people including others who were freed from slavery. One of her teaching aids was to show the scars on her back that remained from the beatings that she received at the hands of the person who enslaved her. These stripes were mainly earned due to the many times that she ran away in her determination to be reunited with her child.
The trauma that enslaved people experienced manifests itself in the despondency of many of their descendants on the Cape Flats today. “The Hebrew scriptures speak about the scapegoat who takes on all the sins of the tribe and is sent into the desert. A lot of our children are the scapegoats inheriting the trauma – conflict, forced removals. In our family it was Mark,” says Weeder.
Mark, my brother,
your beautiful, brown eyes
coloured by the pain of knowing
that the wards and doctors were
of the same prison, you knew
from another time.
Mark, a year younger than Michael, had a violent streak and spent time in Valkenburg Psychiatric Hospital. He died at the age of 55, after a heart attack and a stroke – his leg having been amputated due to diabetes. Weeder recalls his brother’s plea, “You must get me out of here; these people are mad.”
4
Weeder reflects on the power of pilgrimage, which is something that he believes Christianity has lost out on. In 2016, he visited the Holy Land with his wife. As a supporter of the Palestinian struggle, he faced criticism from some friends for his decision to participate in the tour. When he placed his hand in the cavity where, according to tradition, the cross on which Jesus died was placed, he was overcome with a deep sadness.
His own personal journey covered much of the Cape Flats where he was born and grew up. But he is an internationalist. He loves Cuba and he spontaneously broke into song when talking about his visit to Cuba in a New Apostolic Church congregation in Silvertown – “My heart is in Havana; Havana, ooh na-na.”
In 1982, he had the opportunity to visit Beirut as a guest of the Near East Council of Churches. His poem, “Something that is loved is never lost”, precedes his reflection on a 9-year-old girl, Mariam, who is reunited with her parents after a car-bomb explosion near her school. “My recall of that day,” he writes, “helped Bonita, my spouse, and me in our decision to have and to raise children in an Apartheid South Africa.”
In that same year, as a young man in New York, he tracked down, Abdullah Ibrahim, and arranged to meet him so that he could hand him a poem that he wrote in honour of the iconic jazz musician. He ended up spending the day with Ibrahim and met his (now) late wife, Sathima Bea Benjamin. The poem that he dedicated to Ibrahim does not make it into either of his two collections but Weeder writes in “Sathima sang,” –
Africa of birdsong
heard in the shade of trees
along which the Camissa flowed
an adagio tempoed sigh of home.
Africa.
The Promise of Memory is available in Cape Town at The Book Lounge in Roeland Street and Exclusive Books Cape Town International Airport, Domestic Departures; and Johannesburg at Bridge Books in Commissioner Street and Exclusive Books Sandton City. Orders can also be placed online via www.africanbookscollective.com and Amazon.com. Lockdown, Love and Lament is available directly from Michael Weeder.
An edited version of this article appeared in New Frame. You can read it here.
[1] Jeremy Cronin, 1983, Inside, Johannesburg: Ravan Press
[2] Mohamed Adhikari, 2005, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough, Athens: Ohio University Press
by Stephen Langtry | Feb 19, 2021 | Books
Dr Abdullah Abdurahman: South Africa’s First Elected Black Politician
Martin Plaut
Jacana, 2020
1.
Martin Plaut’s biography of Abdullah Abdurahman is a brilliant effort to bring to the surface the life story of a largely forgotten but important figure in Cape and South African history. There is not a lack of information about the life of Abdurahman and Plaut’s volume includes a fairly comprehensive bibliography. For that contribution alone, this biography is invaluable. He reminds readers of the works of Mohamed Adhikari[1], Crain Soudien[2], Gavin Lewis[3], and Richard van der Ross[4], and he makes particular mention of Eve Wong’s[5] thesis for her Master’s degree from UCT.
At the time of his death, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman was a highly respected figure. His funeral procession brought the city of Cape Town to a standstill. The funeral was attended by the Mayor of Cape Town and tributes flowed in from several quarters, including from the Prime Minister, Jan Smuts. It is therefore interesting that in less than one hundred years after his passing, the legacy of the Doctor from District Six is in need of rescuing.
Biographies about popular figures – alive or death – are a dime a dozen. But writing about someone who was once known but has now receded into obscurity is a challenge. It is very much like salvaging a sunken ship or excavating an archaeological site. So, one approaches this biography about Abdurahman with some excitement in order to discover which new treasures will be revealed. But one is also curious about why this particular story has been neglected; in the same way that one wishes to understand why a ship sank or why a once majestic structure was abandoned.
In the first quarter of the 21st century, South Africa is in desperate need of stories being told and retold. As someone who is engaged in social media on retelling the stories of people from the distant and recent past, I am often surprised at how many people are unaware of large aspects of South African history. One has to wonder what is being taught at our schools. Of course, the blame must be placed squarely at the feet of national government which has neglected the heritage sector – including its transformation and governance – at the expense of a narrow exposition of our history. With the lack of knowledge of the past, there is a growing body of misinformation to fill the gaps.
Globally, there is an assault on facts of even not more than a few days old. The efficacy of this assault grows stronger as the distance between events of the past and our present recollection widens. In few places is this more evident than in present-day South Africa.
The campaign to erase memory has become such a threat to the moral order that holocaust denial is considered a crime in Germany and several other countries. Just 26 years after the official end of apartheid – which was declared a crime against humanity – South Africa is experiencing a rise in apartheid denialism. While the seven volumes that comprise the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission gather dust, there is a strident effort to deny or minimise the impact of apartheid (and the colonial injustices which preceded it). While these sentiments have always abounded at dinner parties, braais and on social media, they were given greater currency in March 2017, when Helen Zille tweeted while waiting to board an aeroplane:
“For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water etc
“Would we have had a transition into specialised health care and medication without colonial influence? Just be honest, please.
“Getting onto an aeroplane now and won’t get onto the wi-fi so that I can cut off those who think EVERY aspect of colonial legacy was bad.”
More recently (June 2020), she followed up with another Tweet:
“Lol, there are more racist laws today than there were under apartheid. All racist laws are wrong. But permanent victimhood is too highly prized to recognise this.”
In the age of “alternative facts”[6] even these statements were considered to outlandish and other leaders of the largest opposition political party distanced themselves from them. However, these statements do not stray too far from the official positions of some opposition political parties and bring to light the discomfort that many white South Africans feel about conversations about colonialism and apartheid. And the question remains: Why is it so important for some to rehabilitate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid? The answer to this question beckons us to pause and reflect on the importance of Plaut’s book.
2.
Shaun Viljoen subtitled his biography of Richard Rive, “A Partial Biography.”[7] Plaut could very easily have done the same to his work on the life of Abdullah Abdurahman. His biography is unashamedly biased in favour of the subject. He builds the character of the Doctor of District Six up to such an extent that, I would argue, he brings into question the stature of some of Abdurahman’s contemporaries.
But Plaut’s biography is also partial in the sense of being incomplete. The 218-page volume tends to focus more on Abdurahman’s opposition to the formation of the Union of South Africa, which sought to exclude the majority Black population from its political life. This might very well be the most important political work in which he participated. It is certainly the aspect of his life which brought him on to the international stage, taking him to meet high level players in England and India. But it is just one part of his life.
There is just a passing reference to the major contribution that Abdurahman made to education for Coloured people. The roles that he played in the establishment of the Teachers’ League of South Africa, ensuring Harold Cressy’s admission to the University of Cape Town (where Cressy became the first Coloured person to obtain a degree), and the founding of both Trafalgar and Livingstone High Schools – the first high schools for Coloured people – are all glossed over.
Interesting information from his record on the Cape Town City Council are also omitted. Plaut neglects to mention, for example, Abdurahman’s vote in favour of the renaming of Maitland Road to Voortrekkerweg[8] in 1938. In response to criticism for this decision, he is reported to have said, “the fact is that non-Europeans stood side by side with the Voortrekkers and their blood was shed freely on the field of battle with the Voortrekkers.” His position on this matter explains some of the negative attitudes to his memory which have lingered after his death.
Plaut concludes that Abdurahman fell out of favour because he located himself too much in the centre of politics and thus earned the ire of both those on the right- and left-wing of South African politics. This elevates Abdurahman to the status of Nelson Mandela who today is considered a sell-out by a radical young Black generation and a terrorist by recalcitrant white racists.
Indeed, there were strong conservative tendencies in the Cape that were fearful of antagonising the white colonial establishment and the status quo. Abdurahman faced opposition, for example, from John X. Merriman (one-time Prime Minister of the Cape) who described him as a “pathetic figure.”[9] Also from within his own community, Abdurahman had his detractors such as F.Z.S. Peregrino and N.R. Veldsman who hitched their wagons either to British idealism or Afrikaner nationalism and who sought to avoid confrontation by all means in the hope that their compliant behaviour would win concessions for Coloured people.
At the same time, while he was a close associate of some of the founders of the African National Congress – such as John Dube, Walter Rubusana, and Sol Plaatje – it is to be understood why the ANC today would not embrace Abdurahman. Though as Plaut points out, the positions taken by Abdurahman at the time did not differ significantly from the early leaders of the ANC. But Plaut presents evidence that even contemporaries such as his own daughter – Cissie Gool – and James La Guma accused him of having “betrayed his people” because of his close ties with white liberals.
Having flown under the radar for the greater part of the last six decades, Abdurahman has escaped some of the vicious criticism that has been levelled at someone like Gandhi – another of his contemporaries and associates. Gandhi has, of course, been found to have harboured strong prejudices against Black (particularly African) people. There is no evidence that this was the case with Abdurahman. On the contrary, the record shows that he worked tirelessly (albeit unsuccessfully) to build bridges between African, Coloured and Indian people in the fight against institutionalised racism.
3.
Plaut’s book (perhaps inadvertently) throws the spotlight on the relentlessness and endurance of white supremacy in South African society.
Abdurahman’s efforts to block the formation of the Union of South Africa were fuelled by his opposition to a political settlement between two white groups – British imperialists and Afrikaner nationalists – at the exclusion of the majority Black population. The Union of South Africa laid the basis for the current political dispensation. It confirmed the borders of the current state – two former British colonies and two former Boer republics. It is interesting that the Afrikaner nationalists wanted to extend the borders to include Bechuanaland (Botswana), Swaziland, Lesotho, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). They were also intent on extending the Boer republics’ policy of disenfranchising the “native” population. How different the fortunes of the region would have turned out if they had succeeded.
The settlement that led to the Union is symbolised today in the three capitals of South Africa – Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town – to appease the white Afrikaners and the English, and the two towers of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, which represent the two white groups. The statue of Louis Botha (the first Prime Minister of South Africa) graces the entrance to Parliament in Cape Town. This is the same Botha who said,
“On the native question in South Africa, the first decade was necessary for the consolidation of the Union. The whites… have laid the foundations of, and must continue the erection of, that edifice to make it habitable. Afterwards they would negotiate to see how much room was left for the natives.”[10]
The hope of 1994 was that the inclusion of the “natives” and, for that matter, all Black people (African, Coloured, and Indian) in the political life of the South African state would magically erase all the history that preceded. This hope was premised on the idea that in exchange for Black South Africans not taking revenge for centuries of oppression, white South Africans would make goodwill gestures of restitution to respond to Alan Paton’s warning:
“I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find that we are turned to hating.”[11]
Plaut illustrates how the period after the formation of the Union of South Africa marked the betrayal of Black aspirations by both Boer and British interests. In particular, in 1936, the British reneged on the promise made by King Edward VII in 1909 to preserve the rights of Black voters in the Cape. The lack of goodwill shown by the white minority towards the majority of South Africans is therefore not a recent phenomenon. Even overt Quislings such as N.R. Veldsman did not win any concessions and were thrown to the side when their usefulness was expended.
Abdurahman emerges as a tragic hero in this biography. He follows all the rules set by white society. He attends one of the best (almost exclusively white) schools in Cape Town. He qualifies as a medical doctor at a prestigious university in Europe. He marries a European woman with whom he returns to Cape Town to set up a medical practice. He is well-connected with the white liberal establishment. He opposes the “radicals” of his time and pursues a politics of restrained protests via official means through his elected positions, by petition and dialogue. In the end though, all his efforts come to naught. He is rejected. He dies with the Union of South Africa on course to embracing a system which would last for another 54 years.
Steve Hofmeyer – an Afrikaner nationalist who moonlights as a musician – famously tweeted in October 2015 that “Blacks were the architects of Apartheid”. After reading Plaut’s book ones understands why someone like Helen Zille actually has much more in common with Hofmeyer than with Black members of her own political party.
Today, the Western Cape (which comprises part of what was once the Cape Colony – and later, Cape Province – in which Abdurahman operated) remains largely divorced from the rest of a unitary Republic of South Africa. Public schools which are predominantly white, such as the one which Abdurahman attended, still exist today. There is a call, which is growing in popularity, for secession from the rest of South Africa. Realising that they cannot succeed on their own, white supremacists who want an independent Cape are appealing to Coloured people to support this call. As during the time of Abdurahman, there are elements in the Coloured community who pin their hopes on white-led parties to restore rights to them which were taken by white people more than 300 years ago. Whether we have learnt from the story of Dr Abdullah Abdurahman remains to be seen.
An edited version of this review was published in The Johannesburg Review of Books. You can read it here.
[1] Mohamed Adhikari, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community, Ohio University Press, 2005. Mohamed Adhikari (ed), Dr A. Abdurahman: A Biographical Memoir by J.H. Raynard, Friends of the National Library of South Africa, in association with the District Six Museum, 2002
[2] Crain Soudien, The Cape Radicals: Intellectuals and Political Thought of the New Era Fellowship, 1930s – 1960s, Wits University Press, 2019
[3] Gavin Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African “Coloured” Politics, David Philip, Cape Town, 1987
[4] Richard van der Ross, In Our Skins: A Political History of the Coloured People, Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 2015
[5] Eve Wong, The Doctor of District Six: Exploring the Private and Family History of Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, City Councillor for District Six of Cape Town (1904 – 1940), MA, University of Cape Town, 2016
[6] “Alternative facts” was a phrase used by Kellyanne Conway on 22 January 2017 when she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer‘s false statement about the attendance numbers of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States of America.
[7] Shaun Viljoen, Richard Rive: A partial biography, Wits University Press, 2013
[8] Al J. Venter, Coloured: A Profile of Two Million South Africans, Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 1974, p. 489
[9] Al J. Venter, Coloured: A Profile of Two Million South Africans, Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 1974, p. 490
[10] Quoted in Martin Plaut, Dr Abdullah Abdurhman: South Africa’s First Elected Black Politician, Jacana, 2020, p. 82
[11] Alan Paton, Cry, The Beloved Country, Jonathan Cape, 1948, p. 235
by Stephen Langtry | Mar 26, 2018 | Books
Recently, news reports drew the links between crooked cops, gang violence and the seedy world that exists beneath Cape Town’s tourist-friendly surface. It is therefore not surprising that the so-called Mother City has been the setting of a number of works of crime fiction over the last few years. Enter, Paul Mendelson.
On face value, Mendelson is singularly unqualified to join the club. He is born and bred in London. “I discovered Cape Town almost 30 years ago; fell in love with it, the people, and a group of friends who have grown to be enormously important in my life,” he says when I caught up with him shortly after the launch of his latest thriller, Apostle Lodge. What an odd way to pay tribute to a city that one loves. But the same can be said about crime fiction writers who choose New York or London as their settings.
“I think that the contrasts between the beauty and horrors of this city make a fine backdrop to a crime novel,” he says. Mendelson’s Cape Town is a city of contrasts. On the one hand there is the natural beauty typified by the mountain and ocean, and on the other, there is the visible evidence of poverty in the sprawling informal settlements composed of corrugated iron and wood houses. There is the hope brought about by the new freedom and democracy but there is also the scourge of high rates of violent crime and corruption.
Cape Town has become part of the international scene. The communications revolution has brought everyone closer but there are pros and cons to this. All people, including criminals, can now communicate easier and work more efficiently. South African crime fiction writers such as Deon Meyer (whom Mendelson considers to be a master of the genre) and Margie Orford have previously introduced Cape Town as the backdrop to best-selling thrillers. Mendelson isn’t far behind them.
Paul Mendelson enjoyed success with his first novel, The First Rule of Survival. But this was after 35 years of trying. Meantime, he had written over a dozen non-fiction books, newspaper columns, features, and for local magazines. His first novel was followed by The Serpentine Road and then The History of Blood.
All four of his crime fiction novels feature the Cape Town cop, Colonel Vaughn de Vries. Vaughn de Vries is very much a child of the apartheid era, trying to adapt to the new South Africa. “I am Vaughn’s age and I find I am becoming increasingly change-averse, so I appreciate that it is not always easy for him,” Mendelson says of his protagonist.
Mendelson is a fairly disciplined writer. He spends about six to nine months thinking about a book before he starts writing; taking about three to four months to do the actual writing. Typically, he starts a writing day at 15:00 and finishes at 01:00 the next morning.
Will Vaughn de Vries make the transition to screen as so many fictional detectives before him? “There are film and TV companies with options on my work, looking to develop books into TV series or feature films and when one of those comes to fruition, I am hoping that may free me up to develop screenplays and scripts,” Mendelson says.
For now, Mendelson is working on his fifth novel. “When I’m writing a book,” he says, “I go through what I now realise are recurring emotions. After the first quarter, I can’t decide if what I’m writing has any merit whatsoever. At the half way point, I think I should have written a different book, usually focused on a minor theme I have running in the book, and at the three-quarter point, I question whether anyone will be want to read what I’ve written at all. So far, thankfully, these concerns have proven fruitless but, I think, as a creator of any kind, you do wonder if you will ever be able to do it again. Here’s hoping…”
THE INTERVIEW
1. What made you decide to locate your crime novels in Cape Town?
I think that the contrasts between the beauty and horrors of this city make a fine backdrop to a crime novel, as do the immersive political machinations which South Africa has endured over the past 150 years and, not least, during the reign of Jacob Zuma.
Politics in South Africa is so visceral, so immediate that I think to ignore that element of a story which is happening in the public eye, is to misunderstand how people in Cape Town (certainly those whom I know) view their lives here.
2. What is the most difficult part of your writing process?
I try to be meticulous in ensuring that there aren’t holes in plots – that is a constant battle to ensure continuity and logical progression. The characters must live, not only within the novel, but certainly before they appear, and perhaps even afterwards. I want to honest and true to my characters and not have them act in a way just to suit the plot, which would seem false, or in an illogical manner. The characters always come first and, if the plot must change because of them, so be it. That sometimes leads to problems but, if I can solve them, I feel that I have been loyal to the people I have created.
3. Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
I try to treat both as the imposters they so obviously are. I am delighted if people enjoy what I do, but I’m aware that we all have different tastes. There are hit TV shows, garlanded novels, and multi-award-winning films, that I simply don’t enjoy or admire. So, obviously, not everyone is going to like what I do. That said, I have been lucky that, generally, people seem to like my novels and, when they are critical, they make completely valid, constructive points which I try to remember.
4. What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer?
I enjoyed overnight success with my first novel after only 35 years of trying.
Meantime, I had written over a dozen non-fiction books, newspaper columns, features, local magazines, etc. So, I regret to say that it is simply this: write and write and write some more. When you are not writing, read. Immerse yourself in your chosen genre and learn what appeals to you and ask yourself how you might reproduce it in your own style, with your own characters, and your own stories.
5. What are your favourite authors and books?
Within the genre of crime, there are many writers whose work I admire. Let’s start with the king of SA crime, Deon Meyer, whose first half dozen books are master classes in wonderful writing (and that’s even in translation – I’m told they are even better in Afrikaans).
I enjoy US crime very much, my hero being James Ellroy. His early work (which, he claims, he now no longer likes) is raw and disturbing, and his later novels brilliantly weave his own, largely amoral, characters into twentieth century US history, which are epic, the use of language utterly wonderful. Like Shakespeare, you need to give your ear time to adjust to the rhythms of the speech, but I find them all-consuming.
Michael Connelly and Robert Crais are two more US authors whose work is inspirational and who I cannot recommend highly enough.
In the UK, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid are two authors whose works continually enthrall me, both masters/mistresses of their art.
6. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Just my partner, Gareth; thank you. He’s a fine braai-meister and, even after 23 years together, still the best company around. So, a nice braai in the garden on a lovely summer’s evening. That makes me incredibly happy.
7. What does success as a writer look like to you?
There are film and TV companies with options on my work, looking to develop books into TV series or feature films and when one of those comes to fruition, I am hoping that may free me up to develop screenplays and scripts and spend more time writing and less time teaching and lecturing and doing other things.
If that were to happen, that would be my idea of success as a writer.
by Stephen Langtry | Jan 25, 2018 | Books
During the twilight years of Apartheid, Zoe Wicomb gained attention with her first book, You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town. The book is a collection of inter-related short stories. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.
“You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town comes from a confident statement by Frieda’s longstanding white boyfriend as she is about to go off to have an abortion in the white part of the city. Frieda Shenton, for her part, does not have a sense of direction, even though she ends up in the clinic and is able to deny that she is coloured in order to have the procedure,” writes Marcia Wright.
A look at my anxious face compelled him to say, “You can’t get lost in Cape Town. There,” and he pointed over his shoulder, “is Table Mountain and there is Devil’s Peak and there Lion’s Head, so how in heaven’s name could you get lost?”
The story recounts the anxiety of the bus ride into town to have the abortion:
I should count out the fare for the conductor. Perhaps not; he is still at the front of the bus. We are now travelling through Rondebosch so that he will be fully occupied with white passengers at the front.
To the desolate moment that concludes the process:
It is 6a.m. Light pricks at the shroud of Table Mountain. The streets are deserted and, relieved, I remember that the next train will pass at precisely 6.22.
by Stephen Langtry | Jan 17, 2018 | Books
In high school, I decided to read more South African literature. Under Apartheid a lot of good books were either banned or “out of print”. In the 1980s, the publisher, David Philip, launched an imprint, Africasouth Paperbacks, which managed to get previously banned books unbanned on the grounds of “literary merit.” It was via this initiative that I could get hold of Alex La Guma’s A Walk in the Night and other stories in the local library.
The novella which lends its name to the collection is a vivid account of life in Cape Town – specifically District Six – as Apartheid repression intensified. The book was published before La Guma fled into exile and shortly before the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. La Guma addresses the issues of racism, poverty and criminality in an unsparing way.
Here is a memorable passage from the novella: “The pub, like pubs all over the world, was a place for debate and discussion, for the exchange of views and opinions, for argument and for the working out of problems. It was a forum, a parliament, a fountain of wisdom and a cesspool of nonsense, it was a centre for the lost and the despairing, where cowards absorbed dutch courage out of small glasses and leaned against the shiny, scratched and polished mahogany counter for support against the crushing burdens of insignificant lives. Where the disillusioned gained temporary hope, where acts of kindness were considered and murders planned.”
The title is taken from lines in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “I am thy father’s spirit; Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night.”
