Geoff Dyer is in Cape Town for the 2014 Open Book Festival, after which he will be based in Joburg for six weeks, as a Mellon Distinguished Visiting Scholar. He sat down with Books LIVE during the opening day media junket for a chat about being a big Damon Galgut fan, meeting Nadine Gordimer as a young whippersnapper back in 1992, and potentially – although probably not – offending JM Coetzee.
Dyer met Coetzee in 2010, when they sat on a panel together at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in Australia. Dyer made a very dry joke in his opening remarks, implying he preferred Gordimer to Coetzee. (Watch the video here.)
Books LIVE: I have to ask about that that video of you and JM Coetzee, taken at the Adelaide Writers’ Week …
Geoff Dyer: I knew he wasn’t a big laugher, but obviously I didn’t want to offend him. Especially since the first night I got to Adelaide he invited me and some other people around to his house for dinner. So I was slightly concerned that maybe I’d offended him, but I’ve seen him now twice, once in Japan and once in England, and he’s so warm and friendly. So I’m confident that he couldn’t have taken offence. And if he had taken offence I would have thought he was a jerk, actually. I thought it was funny, and I knew the Australian audience would like it.
So are you a big fan of Gordimer, or was that just a set up?
It’s true, but at that point I could have chosen anyone. Her list of honours coincided so exactly with Coetzee’s that it worked. She was just build-up material for the punchline. But of course I enjoy her work. In fact, back when I was young, when I got the Somerset Maugham Prize, in 1992 [for But Beautiful], she presented it to me. And a picture was taken; I was trying to find it the other day but I don’t know where it is. But there’s me as a 33-year-old guy and this nice, very distinguished lady shaking my hand. And of course I admired the books, although I haven’t read her now for about 20 years, but I remember The Burger’s Daughter and A Sport of Nature.
Have you read any of the authors at Open Book this year, or are you familiar with their work?
I’m a big fan of Damon Galgut. I was a big supporter of The Good Doctor when it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And I’ve just started reading this [holds up Imraan's Coovadia’s Transformations], although I realise I’ve read some of these essays in pre-book form. And then Francesca Beard, who weirdly was here and now who’s gone off to Joburg and is coming back, I know her work quite well. Like many people, I was slightly prejudiced against performance poets, I thought, you know, they only do performance because they’re not proper poets. But since then I’ve encountered really great performance poets and I realised, oh my God! When it’s good it’s amazing.
- Follow Liesl Jobson (@LieslJobson), Jennifer Malec (@projectjennifer), Helené Prinsloo (@helenayp), Erin Devenish (@ErinDevenish811), Lindsay Callaghan (@LindsayCal), and Ben Williams (@benrwms) for more Open Book 2014 coverage