Lauren Beukes, Steven Boykey Sidley, Sarah Lotz, Zukiswa Wanner, Gareth Crocker, Damon Galgut, Michiel Heyns, Penny Busetto – the number of South African writers setting their novels overseas seems to have increased dramatically recently.
In a piece for the Mail & Guardian’s Thoughtleader, Fiona Snyckers asks: “Should local writers always set their books in South Africa?”
Snyckers suggests that South African writers often feel “conflicted” about where to set their books. She believes that the main reasons writers may choose to set their novels in South Africa are, first, to “combat the cultural cringe” – the feeling that locally produced art is inherently inferior – and second, because “they are well aware that South Africa is a rich source of inspiration for virtually any genre imaginable”.
On the other hand, the main reason Snyckers puts forward for setting a novel overseas is, plainly, the more lucrative overseas markets. “For those writers who are looking to make it big internationally,” she says, “there is an anxiety that their books should have a British or American setting in order to be successful.”
Snyckers references Sidley, Beukes and Lotz, and concludes that setting is not central to a novel’s quality or success:
But in none of these cases can the success of the novel be attributed to its overseas setting. The originality of the ideas and the excellence of the writing are key to how well they were received.
Perhaps the most useful conclusion writers can draw is that they should feel free to set their novels wherever in the world they choose. Not one of us carries the weight of South African literary prestige on our shoulders alone. But we should also make sure we are very familiar with whatever setting we decide on. Howlers don’t make anyone look good. And if we do happen to choose never to set our books outside South Africa at all, that’s more than okay too.
Lauren Beukes, whose first two novels, Moxyland and Zoo City, were set in South Africa, made the shift overseas for her third, The Shining Girls – which turned out to be one of the most decorated novels in South African history. Her latest book, Broken Monsters, is set in Detroit, and she tells Books LIVE she did not feel at all conflicted moving away from South Africa.
“That story [The Shining Girls] would not have worked here,” Beukes says. “So, no, I didn’t feel guilty and I didn’t even think about it. It seems to be more of a theoretical issue. I’ve had more people say, ‘have you had people cross with you?’ than people actually being cross with me. Although maybe that is them expressing that they’re cross with me, I don’t know. Maybe it’s passive-aggressive criticism.”
Beukes says she believes she is still telling South African stories, but that an American setting allowed her to address issues outside the narrow focus of our political past.
“Of course we want our stories to be told,” she says. “But the stuff that we deal with here is universal. And I write about cities that are analogues for here, it’s just that they have a broader canvas, which gives me more scope to play.
“Certainly with The Shining Girls, I was specifically interested in the 20th century, I didn’t want to do Bill and Ted’s Excellent Killing Spree Through Time, where it was caveman days, and then Shakespeare and then Hitler. I wanted to look at how the 20th century has shaped us, and how much has changed in the last 100 years. But the 20th century in South Africa is the story of apartheid. I’m obviously still interested in racism and segregation, and I brought that into The Shining Girls, but it would have had to be fundamentally about apartheid. I wanted to look at how women’s roles have changed as well.
“People have misquoted me on this. It’s not that I didn’t want to write about apartheid, because both Zoo City and Moxyland are apartheid allegories, it’s that I wanted to write about more than just apartheid. And I wanted to look at the War on Terror and the Great Depression. America’s been a huge influence on the world, and I was interested in that. I was interested in how much America has shaped us, and the things that happened there, but to draw parallels with the things that happened here. I mean, McCarthyism is a direct parallel to apartheid, and it was so interesting reading about it, especially having read Helen Joseph’s memoir, and having read Country of My Skull. The stuff that happened there, people spying on people, the FBI going into your home and searching through your documents, that’s exactly what special branch used to do here.
“I write with a South African sensibility, so I don’t feel like I’ve betrayed anyone.”
Beukes also says that she “sneaks in South African references – every time!”
“I sneak South Africa into The Shining Girls, I sneak South Africa into Broken Monsters, Faith47, the grafitti artist, gets a mention in Broken Monsters. And Detroit is my way of writing about Hillbrow again. And Chicago is Johannesburg. It’s just on a different scale and a different canvas. But it’s really just a stand-in for Joburg.”
Sidley, whose Entanglement, Stepping Out and Imperfect Solo are all set in America, also discounted any feelings of conflict, saying he felt “No guilt at all.”
“As mentioned in Fiona’s piece, I lived in Los Angeles for half of my adult life” Sidley says. “I am also one half American and have dual US/SA citizenship. Add that to the fact that I spent my formative years reading Roth and Heller and Updike and Styron and the other great US authors and it becomes the obvious location for me – I have been long obsessed by complexities and paradoxes of America.”
Sidley agrees with Beukes’ assertion that America “presents an enormous canvas on which to paint the stories I wanted to tell and themes I wanted to explore”.
“I find it hard to imagine any of the the characters in my previous books as South African,” he says. “It was not a case of write what you know either – Stepping Out was set in Columbus Ohio, where I have spent very little time.”
Sidley admits he avoided using South Africa as a setting “because of the racial and historical elephant in the room”, saying those themes “crowd out many things and I felt others could deal better with South African stories than I”. His next novel, however, will be set locally, and he says: “Now I am in the thick of it and I am staring the elephant squarely in eye. Or maybe the kneecap. It is exhilarating and yes, more difficult.”
Penny Busetto won the 2013 EU Literary Award for her debut novel, The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself, which is set on an island off the coast of Italy. Like Beukes, Busetto says the spark for the novel was a sentence in Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull, in which a human rights lawyer says “Identity is memory”, and the novel is deeply engaged with questions around South Africa’s traumatic past.
“Yes, I did feel conflicted about setting it in Italy,” Busetto says, “and I have come across criticism because of this. However, it is an imaginary Italy for the most part – I have never visited the island of Ponza where Anna lives, and most of my descriptions of it are actually descriptions of Table Mountain, where I love to walk.
“You know, its interesting – I became increasingly aware as I was writing the book that the more I moved into fiction the closer I came to the essence of what I was trying to get at. Facts and historical details felt too concrete, they constricted me.
“I would love to find a way to write about South Africa, but for the moment it feels very difficult.”
When it comes to the question of audience, Beukes admits that she feels there is a “limited market” for South African stories, but says ultimately that is not the deciding factor.
“It is frustrating, because half my pitches to my agent are South African,” she says. “But I do feel there is a limited market for that. We talk about which ones will work commercially, but my agent says to me: ‘You can write whatever you want to write. If you want to write a Joburg Western you can absolutely do that. You’re just going to get a lot less money for it.’ And I think that’s fine. Some people will think ‘well, I actually just want the money’. But I want to write the books that matter to me. Wherever they’re set.
“My agent wants me to have the best possibly career, and he wants to look after my financial interests, obviously, but the most important thing – the most important thing! – is that I write the book that I want to write. And maybe it won’t sell. Maybe it will sell 3000 copies, and that’s okay. I have huge admiration for people like James Patterson, especially because he’s supported libraries so much and taken a stand again Amazon, he’s a writer of real integrity, but I’m never going to put books out at that speed and I really want to write meaningful books, which matter to me, which I care about.”
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