By Ben Williams for The Sunday Times
The catchiest book title to bolt from South Africa’s fiction stable last year was Charlie Human’s, who named his speculative, supernatural take on Cape Town’s underworld Apocalypse Now-Now.
South African fiction is a glorious, Augean mess. Among its principal stablekeeps are Human’s publisher, Umuzi – an imprint of that fearful new griffon, Penguin Random House; Kwela, which has a long history of setting SA Lit’s Pan-piper tune; and Jacana, which stalks the indie publishing scene like a sphinx, pouncing on fresh writing.
As a friend of mine who works in books mentioned recently, these and other imprints find themselves scattered across the battlefield of a turf war that’s been raging for years. It’s a war between two sub-genres that have increasingly come to command our reading lives, Human’s book being just one amongst their legion.
It’s the war of Sex versus the Apocalypse.
Sex used to be on top, if you’ll pardon the indecency. But as my friend pointed out, erotica – once kept deep within the shadows of the Romance category, now brazenly leading the charge of the purple satin standards – is suffering casualties. The ranged forces of EL James, Sylvia Day et al are caught in a pincer movement, between doom on one side and dysfunction on the other.
It’s Dystopia, of course, that’s applying the squeeze. Formerly a little-visited corner in the wider realm of Science Fiction, it has grown to dominate the genre, the final destination of all manner of spec-fic fantasies.
Locally, this pits the likes of Human, Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg – to name but a few of Dystopia’s denizens – against the likes of Helena S Paige and Jassy Mackenzie, those dungeon-masters of desire.
But what none of them seem to realise is that a new threat has hoved into view, which could see their – and indeed all other – genres of fiction shipped off to the equivalent of SA publishing’s salt mines, never to be heard from again. It’s thus imperative that they join arms and face the peril together.
This Hercules, come to clean up, takes the form of a mild-mannered scientist, previously best known for his thick tome on running. His name is Tim Noakes. He has published a diet book, called The Real Meal Revolution, that has those who take a teaspoon of sugar with their tea finding solidarity with another lot of outcasts, the smokers.
The Real Meal Revolution has burst with coruscating brilliance into South Africans’ consciousness. People are posting pictures of their newly punched belt holes as book reviews. It’s been top of our bestseller list for weeks, outselling other contenders the way KFC outsells the local deli. I daresay Noakes has recalibrated how local publishers view their jobs: to publish instruction manuals about what to eat, principally. Prepare, ye novelists, for the onslaught of the Diet genre.
Of course, diet books, with their dystopian inferences, are about the apocalypse that’s happening, now-now, in your kitchen – meaning there’s an angle for Human and his lot to latch on to. On the other hand, the links between sex and food go back go back as far as love itself, so there’s also hope for the Eros crowd. As the first step in the fightback to recapture fiction’s marketshare, then, the strategy is clear: novelists, start putting recipes in your books.
Book details
- Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human
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EAN: 9781415201862
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- The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
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EAN: 9781415202012
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- The Three by Sarah Lotz
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EAN: 9781444770360
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- Dark Windows by Louis Greenberg
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EAN: 9781415206874
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- A Girl Walks Into a Wedding by Helena S Paige
EAN: 9780908387939
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- Switch by Jassy Mackenzie
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EAN: 9781415206843
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- Real Meal Revolution by Tim Noakes, Sally-Ann Creed, David Grier, Jonno Proudfoot, Tudor Caradoc-Davies
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EAN: 9780992206277
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