[Interview] Gisela Hoyle

Poet and novelist Gisela Hoyle was born in Barkly-West, in the Northern Cape of South Africa.

She attended Kimberley Girls High School and graduated with an MA in English from Rhodes University.

She taught at Rhodes University and then at various schools in South Africa. Currently, she lives and works in the UK.

The White Kudu (Picnic Publishing, 2010) is her first novel.

In this interview, Gisela Hoyle talks about her writing:

When did you start writing?

I have been writing since I was a child -- mostly poetry and mostly for occasions in the family or at school (I am a teacher).

I decided to get published about 18 months ago now -- because I had written my first complete novel, The White Kudu.

I took my manuscript to a Writers’ Clinic, where it was positively received, and I got some good advice on how to approach publishers; which I did.

How would you describe your writing?

Well I don’t think I’m a genre writer. I just write and let other people put it into categories.

The White Kudu has been described as both an Indiana Jones type of adventure story and a literary novel. I suppose this is because the plot follows this young geologist and his discoveries. These lead him to the local mythology -- which is what always seems to happen to Indiana Jones; and then the literary side, I suppose, has come from readers finding several layers of meaning in it, and perhaps the way it is written, I’m not sure. Also, because it is a story about stories and the role of narrative in defining identities, in the interaction between people and places.

Who is your target audience?

I don’t really write with a particular audience in mind -- I think ‘audiences’ are commercial categories for publishers, rather than real people. I’d like to think my writing would appeal to those -- of any age or gender or nationality.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

Writing about South Africa’s past is a challenge. I want to do that compassionately and truthfully.

South Africa’s past (and present still) was fraught with conflict and violence -- brought on by deliberate injustice. There are so many stories and versions of stories and they each will have some element of truth, but they will each also be utterly subjective and almost inevitably biased.

When I was growing up there, everything you said, the most ordinary daily details -- like what you had for breakfast -- were politicised; placed you in a camp, somehow. It was extraordinarily tense and loaded. So, how can one speak about it clearly, fairly, objectively? I think this is what the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings were trying to address -- speaking about such a past is always a risk: it risks being unfair, it risks being misunderstood and yet if there is to be a future, it must be done and done in a spirit of reconciliation. It was abused, of course it was, but it was an astonishingly brave thing, too.

For me, writing about it now, from another country means risking rose-coloured spectacles and nostalgia on the one hand, and dramatisation on the other; both of which will skew the real, the human story. I have tried to focus on individuals within such a situation of strong group identification and the resulting violence -- what does it mean to live your life, and live it decently, in such a world?

In the writing you are doing, which authors influenced you most?

Probably mostly South African authors, such as Marguerite Poland, Andre Brink and Etienne van Heerden, who all share an interest I think in the mythology of South Africa and the relationship of various people (coloniser and native, missionary, shaman and farmer) to the land and the landscape.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

Well, The White Kudu is set in the place where I grew up: a farm in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The place is a mission farm in an area, where land ownership was deeply contested -- and the questions of who the land belongs to, whether it can belong to anyone ; or whether it is not rather a question of people belonging to the land have always interested me. Also because of my own hybrid nationality. The time is the mid to late 90s -- so early post-Apartheid South Africa.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

I am interested in language: its role in defining our identities and how that works in multi-cultural or more specifically hybrid societies.

It is, I think, especially through stories that we achieve an understanding of ourselves and our societies. So The White Kudu is really a novel about stories -- their power over us, their beauty and their danger. But also their power to connect people and to help with understanding history.

You make reference to "hybrid nationality” and "hybrid societies". What do you mean by this?

I mean people and societies which are not defined by a single culture and that have been so for a time long enough to feel that they belong to both -- so, more than just multi-cultural.

I grew up in a German-speaking family with very close ties to Germany, as my parents worked for the Berlin Mission Society; but I also grew up in South Africa, went to South African schools, am ‘at home’ in South Africa. I belong to both. I think it is best expressed by a kind of ‘both and’; rather than ‘either/or’ approach to life -- it is always looking from two angles at once, and being OK with that.

Do you write every day?

I do try to write every day -- this is not always possible, especially during very busy times of term.

I get up early and write between 4 and 6 o’clock in the morning -- before school or anyone else in the family is even up. I love the quietness of that time.

I simply made a decision that a day in which I have not written is a day wasted and so I get up make a cup of tea and write.

At times I set myself a word target or just aim to get a certain scene or poem written. It ends because the rest of the day starts and I have to get to work.

How many books have you written so far?

The White Kudu is my first novel to be published.

It is the story of a young geologist, who is posted to a farm in the fairly remote rural area of the Northern Cape. He encounters there the legend of a white kudu as well as the story of his predecessor’s scandal. During his search for mineral wealth he uncovers an ancient skeleton, which adds another dimension the land claims battle raging in the area at the same time.

How did you choose a publisher for the book?

I chose Picnic Publishers because they stated very clearly that they were interested in the writing, the story or the poetry and not in the biography of the author. It is a small independent publisher, which is great as one stays far more involved in the entire process of publishing than I imagine one would with a bigger publisher.

Which were the most difficult aspects of the work that you put into the book?

There is quite a lot of anthropology in the novel -- that was an interesting challenge to work into the story. It was important for understanding the resolution, but it is not the sort of conversation people outside universities have much. So, I needed not to get too involved in that -- but it was very tempting, because it is so interesting.

What did you enjoy most?

I really enjoyed ‘reliving’ many of the stories of my childhood -- also doing the research on them and finding them to be a part of the authentic mythology of San people of South Africa. So the most difficult was also the most enjoyable, really.

What sets The White Kudu apart from other things you've written?

The strong mythological content makes it very different to many other books. The only other work I published is poetry, so as a novel it is very different. As a story it is also very closely linked to very specific places in the world -- poetry is not like that, or my poetry is not.

In what way is it similar?

The interest in language, in the power of naming things is present in all my work and the power language has to make connections: between people and the place in which they live, between people. The way shared language can create a sense of belonging -- but also the power of language to confuse and alienate.

Questions around who owns the land and who the land belongs to are contentious in many parts of Africa. Do you see a time when these questions will be resolved?

Yes, land ownership is very contentious, because it goes to the heart of the injustice of South Africa’s existence. When I was growing up, it was something constantly looming over our lives. The Nationalist government at the time did not trust the Berlin Mission at all and were constantly threatening to appropriate the land. So I grew up knowing that ‘home’ did not belong to us -- we were outsiders, from all sectors of South African society, but that did not prevent the feeling of belonging to the place. And I think that is perhaps a useful distinction: people belonging to the land and the land belonging to people.

People, for various reasons, have a right to live in a certain land: politically in South Africa the white farmers as a group had no right, because they had come by that land unjustly. But then, when you consider a farmer individually, who has worked the land, has got to know the land, has loved the land and taken care of it, perhaps even suffered for it -- what does that mean for ownership?

On the other hand, there are traditional claims to land ownership, there are blood-ties to land -- and the facts of stealing and war and conquest in history remain, too.

The farm I grew up on had been ‘given’ by the queen to the Mission Society as a refuge for those Black people, who had become Christian and were being persecuted by their people for it. So it occupies an interesting, ambiguous place in that history: it was both taken from the people but also being used for the people. The descendants of these communities still live there and the process of establishing their ownership of it is underway.

I have no answer to these problems but think that if history is so intractable, why can we not think about it practically -- what would be best for the land? I do not think that individual people owning an unworkably tiny piece of land as restitution for the past is a practical solution or is even fair in any real sense of the word.

The more I think about it, the more I find the concept of owning a piece of the earth strange. Perhaps we should only own time on the land, rather than the land itself?

What will your next book be about?

My next book is a coming of age story. It is also set in South Africa, but in the Knysna Forest in the Western Cape and further back in time -- still in the Apartheid era.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

I think it is very much too early to tell.

Possibly Related Books:

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Related Interview:
[Interview] Jason Blacker, author of "Black Dog Bleeding", Conversations with Writers, September 30, 2009

[Interview] Zvisinei Sandi

Zimbabwean writer, academic and civil rights activist, Zvisinei Sandi teaches on politics and literature in Southern Africa at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

She has also worked as a journalist and was secretary general of the human rights watchdog, the Society for Gender Justice.

Some of her short stories have been published in anthologies that include Creatures, Great and Small (Mambo Press, 2005) and Women Writing Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2008).

In this interview, Zvisinei Sandi talks about her writing.

When did you start writing?

I started out as a very little child, at about six, seven years old. I used to make plays about my parents and friends and the colorful years back then -- the last days of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, the Cease Fire, the Assembly Points and the changes in lifestyle for everyone.

When did decide you wanted to be a published writer?

Very early really, in high school, although my parents fought it. They were afraid that my writing would get in the way of my studies. They did all they could to stop me, including taking away my manuscripts and giving me extra chores. When I got the Randalls National Essay Writing Prize in 1990, they were furious with my teachers for encouraging me. However that prize, handed over to the hardly formed seventeen year old girl who never before had been to a city, determined the course of my life. I decided then that I was a writer, and would always be a writer.

How would you describe the writing you are doing?

It’s about the parts of the world I have seen …

Who is your target audience?

The world is my audience.

Every person lives a separate life, and hopes and aspirations and dreams that only they can tell to the rest of the world. I often find that I have a lot to say.

Who influenced you most?

My family has had the biggest influence on me -- they taught me to love my country, and to value everything that is good and beautiful and decent. They taught me to love music and hard work and to dream. And my writing is mostly comprised of these.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

I would say, a great deal. I remember as a little girl, my first, faltering, almost ridiculous attempts at writing, and father telling me that what I really needed at the time was not to bury myself in a manuscript, but to go out there, and learn, get the certificates that would be my passport to the world, and see the world and then, if I still wished it I would have something to write about.

Now, having grown up, passed through grad. school and traveled, I believe I have something to say. I can write about pain, anguish, despair or joy with conviction because I have experienced these things and can talk about them with authority.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

Zimbabwe has had a challenging decade, and in an economic meltdown, the publishing sector is always the first to go. At the moment my main concerns are about finding publishers for all the writing I did while in Zimbabwe. This includes a number of novels, short story and poetry collections.

Do you write every day?

Every night at 2 a.m., I wake up. That’s when my mind is clearest and I sit up to ponder on the dynamics of my world. That is when I do my writing. It’s a pattern I established long ago, as a young girl growing up in the Zambezi Valley, and the days where too full and fast to allow even a single moment of reflection.

How many books have you written so far?

I have written about four books, though I have not yet managed to find publishers for all of them. Two of the books, Through Hararean Mazes, and Tales of the Wild Savanna have been serialized in the weekly newspapers The Southern Times and The Sunday Mail (Namibia and Zimbabwe).

I have also had short stories published in the anthologies Creatures, Great and Small, published by Mambo Press in 2005, as well as Women Writing Zimbabwe, published by Weaver Press in 2008.

Various articles and poetry selections have been published online.

My novels, Vagrant Souls and Flight from the Inferno are still waiting for a publisher.

What is your latest book about?

That would be Flight from the Inferno. It’s a fast-moving adventure story that starts in Harare, in 2000, and makes its way into the crowded market places of Lusaka, and then moves into war-torn [Democratic Republic of Congo] DRC.

The book virtually carves a path through Central Africa. When I started writing it, I had never been to any of the places. Carrying out the research was one of the most challenging jobs I have ever attempted. However, with the help of my college classmates, most of whom are now scattered in various countries across the African continent, it all came out beautifully. And, now that I have travelled the world, and actually seen these countries, I can present them with authority.

Which aspects of the work did you enjoy most?

It was an exciting adventure putting the thriller together, building into it all the energy and color of the incredible Central African environment.

What sets the book apart from other things you've written?

It’s that excitement you find in it -- that zazazu you find in the thrill of fear, and danger and that “Go! Go!” feeling you get when you encounter a life struggle.

What’s similar between this work and all writing, the world over, is the effort that went into it. Yes, you have a powerful story, and a clever way of delivering it, all that would amount to nothing without all those long, grinding hours. In the end, you do have to put in a lot of hard work.

What will your next book be about?

At the moment, I am working on another colorful short story collection, covering all the places I have been to, and the exceptional people I have encountered.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

My most significant accomplishment? Well, that's challenging for me to say, because you know what? It’s still coming. I see myself as just starting out my writing career, and when I am 90, curled up in front of a fire, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, then I will close my eyes and -- this I promise you -- I will tell you of my greatest accomplishment ever.

Related books:

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Related articles:

• "Zvisinei Sandi: Writer and Political Exile", by Vinita Mohan, Justice, Social Memory and Story-Telling, September 26, 2008.
• "Repression in Zimbabwe and the South Africa Connection: An Interview with Zvisinei C. Sandi" by Russell Berman, Telos Press, May 29, 2008.
• "Zvisinei Sandi", Munyori Literary Journal.
• "Zvinisei Sandi", Poetry International Web -- Zimbabwe

[Interview] Karl Stuart Kline

Poet and author, Karl Stuart Kline is a past president of Epilepsy Concern, a coalition of self-help groups; a past president of the Greater Miami Avicultural Society and a lifetime honorary member of the Florida Sheriff’s Association.

He made his debut as an author in 2004 with the publication of Poison Pearls, an 88-paged collection of poetry and prose which explores issues that include forced labor, modern-day slavery, human trafficking and prostitution.

He followed this up with Going Without Peggy (PublishAmerica, 2005), another collection of poetry and prose about his marriage of 17 years and the bond that existed between him and his first wife, Peggy; her struggle with breast cancer and the effect her death had on him.

His latest book, Brain Stemmed Roses (PublishAmerica, 2006) is also a collection of poetry and prose and includes some of his early work from the 60s and 70s as well as poetry about romance and friendship in Eastern Europe and a section dedicated to his wife of seven years, Marina.

In a recent interview, Karl Stuart Kline spoke about the work he is doing.

How would you describe your writing?

Impulsive... I seldom sit down knowing in advance just what it is that I am going to write or what form that it is going to take. I find a certain amount of freedom in that because each time that I sit down to write, I have a different story to tell and a different way to tell it.

I want my work to withstand the test of time and for it to be as popular and well-read in a hundred years as it would be now if I was writing to please modern stylists.

I don’t write to accommodate the style du jour and refer to myself as writing poetry that will appeal to people who think that they don’t like poetry.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I don’t believe that it was ever a conscious decision any more than it is for a fish to swim. Writing has always been as natural as breathing for me and the instruments of my craft are always close to hand.

A school assignment prompted me to write my first poem in 1966. The medium just had a natural appeal for me and I continued to write poetry as a matter of preference whenever possible.

Ten years later that same poem motivated me again, when I entered it and a few others in a college level competition... The poem took first place.

Later I found out that I had caused some consternation amongst the judges when the three winning poems were matched to their authors and they found my name on all three entries. Contest rules did not allow any one person to be awarded more than one prize, so all my poems had to be removed from the competition and those that remained were judged again for the second and third place awards.

The three poems were "The Tear", "Storm’s End" and "Patterns". All three are included in my most recent book, Brain Stemmed Roses.

Who would you say has influenced you most?

I suppose I would have to say that it has been the women in my life. With few exceptions, they have been a source of encouragement and inspiration for my writing.

As for writers that might have influenced me, I might mention the story-telling abilities of Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein. Neither of them were noted as poets, but they both had that wry sense of humor that I like to bring to my own work.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

Now that I have three books to my credit, my priorities have shifted. Over the last year I have continued to write but not with the immediate goal of my next book in mind. Rather, I have been concentrating on my Internet presence, so that my name is starting to be recognized in an ever widening circle of people.

I’ve also kept my websites free of any advertising. I hate to be bushwhacked any time that I find a site that I want to visit and I refuse to do it to anyone else.

Do you write everyday?

Unfortunately, no... My day job can be very demanding and there are often days that I just come home and collapse.

When I do write, many times I start by sorting through notes that I have made to myself over the preceding weeks, months and even years... they can be newspaper clippings, journal entries or scraps of verse, jotted down on napkins or placemats and saved.

I follow my muse, separating or bringing together different notes etc., according to perceived discords or commonalities. When something or a combination of things starts to sing to me, it tightens my focus. Soon I have something new to share with my readers.

Where I start often has very little to do with where I wind up. For example, I wrote an epigraph for a page on my website and it later became a rhyming sestina, done consistently in iambic heptameter.

How, where and when does the process end?

I don’t think that it ever ends! I may complete a piece to my satisfaction, but it almost always leads to something else!

Your latest book, Brain Stemmed Roses is divided into six sections. How and why is this?

The first of them is “A Poet’s View of Poetry”... mostly verse, but also an essay titled “Poetic Form and the Community of Man.” The second, “Early Works”, is material that I wrote in the ‘60s and ‘70s, including my very first poem. The third, “Smart and Sexy” details some of my dealings with the fair sex, starting about a year after Peggy’s death.

The fourth section is “The Ukrainian Connection” and it tells of my friendship with two itinerant Ukrainian artists. Through them, my acquaintance with Anne McCaffrey became possible and their friendship encouraged me to consider taking a bride from the old USSR. The section finishes with my expedition to Kyrgyzstan.

The fifth section, “Finding Marina” was meant to be a book in its own right, but my lovely Russian wife is also shy and she discouraged me from completing the book. However, I’ve still managed to tell the story of our ‘round the world romance, "Love, Marriage & Immigration."

The sixth and final section, “Passions of Poetry”, is comprised of several of my best and most recent works.

You mention Anne McCaffrey. Do you mean the Anne McCaffrey who wrote the Dragonriders of Pern series of books?

Yes, that's Anne McCaffrey. We know each other through a common acquaintance, the sculptor Vlad Ivanov of Kiev, Ukraine -- on his website you will see my name pop up as you run the cursor over some of the sculptures that are displayed in his gallery. (Except that he misspells my middle name as "Stewart.") Those are pieces that I commissioned with him and he also did the dragons for the gates to Anne's estate in Ireland (Dragonhold-Underhill).

Incidentally, my poetry that went into Going Without Peggy was inspiration for his Orpheus & Eurydice sculpture. I'm the reason Orpheus has a ponytail. Vlad surprised me as well when he revealed Orpheus & Eurydice to me. He'd been rather secretive about the project and I had no forewarning that he was doing Orpheus in my image.

How long did it take you to write Brain Stemmed Roses?

Counting my early works? Forty years!

When and where was it published?

April, 2006, by Publish America. This is my third book with this publisher.

Originally they were recommended to me as being friendly to first time authors. The writer who suggested them to me had his book turned down by them, so my first impression of them was also that they weren’t accepting just anybody who could submit a manuscript. They were also a relatively new company and at the time they were using new technology in an industry that had been relying on a business model that’s been around for decades, if not longer.

Better yet, they didn’t ask for any money and even offered a token advance that was at least symbolic of the fact that they expected you to be able to earn some income with them.

So I sent in my query letter and Poison Pearls was accepted for publication!

What advantages or disadvantages has this presented?

One advantage that I had was being able to retain a great deal of editorial control over the finished product. I know of one typo that slipped through in my first book and I have yet to find any in either of my other books.

Also important is that they have a very capable art department that pays close attention to the ideas that I present to them for the covers of my books. The cover art for all three of my books has been better than it had to be.

The most enjoyable part of having these books published is the sheer number of people who have come back to me and told me that not only did they enjoy reading my books cover to cover, but that they went back and read them two or three times over.

Which aspects of the work you put into the book was most difficult?

Blending and transitioning from one section to another. I didn’t really have a single unifying theme in this book, except that it presented several different periods in my creative life and wove together several interesting stories from my life.

All my books are quite different from what I have written in the past as a reporter, columnist or contributing editor.

Brain Stemmed Roses is a larger book than the other two and gives a broader overview of my art through the course of several decades while Going without Peggy could be read almost as a true life romance novel. Its story has brought tears to many eyes.

Poison Pearls, on the other hand, is a poetic voice for human rights and is meant to help in the fight against human trafficking. Nonetheless, it was quite a surprise for me when the booksellers classified it with Criminology, Social Issues and Women’s Studies instead of poetry! It’s also the beginning of what ultimately became scaredsafe.org, a website that unabashedly uses the power of poetry to combat the evils of human trafficking.

This article has also been featured on Associated Content.

[Interview] Rory Kilalea

Rory Kilalea has worked in the Middle East and throughout Africa, directing documentaries as well as in various production, script-writing and management positions. Films he has been involved with include Jit (1990); A Dry White Season (1987) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986).

He has also taught broadcasting, writing and performance at the University of Zimbabwe as well as improvisational drama at the British Council in Athens, London, Johannesburg, and in the Middle East.

Writing under the pen-name, Murungu, his poetry and short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies in countries that range from Ireland; Malaysia; South Africa; the United Kingdom; the United States and Zimbabwe.

His writing includes the collection of short stories, The Arabian Princess & Other Stories (Zodiac Publishing, 2002); “Whine of a Dog” which was shortlisted for the Caine Prize 2000; “Zimbabwe Boy” which appears in Asylum 1928 and Other Stories (Fish Publishing, 2001) and was shortlisted for the Caine Prize 2002; and “Unfinished Business” which appears in Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2005).

In 2005, one of his plays, “Zimbabwe Boy,” was adopted for the Africa Festival at the London Eye and has been performed at the National Theatre in London. Other plays he has written include “Ashes”; “Diary of David and Ruth” and “Colours.”

In a recent interview, Rory Kilalea spoke about his concerns as a writer.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a writer? And who would you say has influenced you the most?

I have always written. I suppose I knew that I would write when I was 11 years of age when a class was captivated by a story I wrote. I still have a copy of it. It was a transformational story about a young girl who becomes part of a vision that she saw.

Doris Lessing, Katherine Mansfield and [Joseph] Conrad were formative short story influences. What I found appealing about them was the fact that they were able to create in a short format, an indelible image which never left my imagination. I still think of “The Secret Sharer” or the “The Lumber Room” and imagine what these writers did with spare use of words to create a world of the ‘now’. It was then that I realised the short story is more than a simple ‘story’ -- it is a moment which can have great impact. Alice Munro does the same -- and even though I sometimes feel, when I am reading her, that I do not want to go further into the (often) dark areas of her characters, I am compelled to. Her skill is the teasing away of layers until you get to a core. These writers are masters.

Then I began to read local Zimbabwean writers -- [Charles] Mungoshi captivated me. He dared to write about and think things which I had not seen written by a black Zimbabwean and in his writing, he was able to show the same struggles, the same hopes as all Zimbabweans -- and of course his writing was of such quality that it had a universal appeal. [Shimmer] Chinodya is also another example of daring to say what others feel (or may feel) it is not correct, or politically correct, to record or explore. That is our function as writers -- to tell it as we see it. And these writers do.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

The role of an outsider looking in.

In what way are you an outsider? And, when you look in, what do you see?

Hmm … now here is a tough question.

Psychoanalysts would say that growing up as a poor white person in a black country may have been part of the reason that I was not part of the normal (whatever that means) white community; that I went to a non-racial school in Bulawayo; that my parents were very Catholic to the extent of praying that I would become their salvation by being a priest. But I tell you when it first occurred to me, I was standing against a mesh gate of our small house in Paddonhurst in Bulawayo and watching a machine tarring the road, splattering pieces of liquid tar into the air, smelling poisonous, but nicely intoxicating. And I refocused and saw a black boy on the other side of the road doing exactly the same as me -- I knew (just as I knew in the Zimbabwean writers I read later) that we were on a similar path. We saw similar things -- dreamt similar things -- but there was fence between me and the boy.

I am looking into a struggle of achieving and understanding our role as Zimbabweans and all of the strange contradictory nature of that.

I have left behind the intellectual romantic hopes of togetherness, and now watch with a detachment. As a result, without the anchor of my family’s faith, I have extracted a terrible price for being adrift. Feeling is different from observing and I have been left with the heart of a romantic and the mind of a cynic.

And there is another thing -- I do not fulfil the ethic of a Rhodie Rugger bugger. For example, I appreciate male beauty -- which of course is anathema to the president in his current situation. As much as I know that most of this rhetoric is politics, it does not ever make the ‘otherness’ go away. Perhaps I have always lived as the secret sharer and want to share that place with my readers.

How have your personal experiences influenced the direction of your writing?

Very much. My life has been a disparate one and thus -- either through film making, the anti-apartheid periods, the war in Zimbabwe, living in the Middle East -- has always provided material.

Emotional values are of interest to me when you use different life experiences. For example, as a Zimbabwean making a film about an Arab wedding, observations become my palette I suppose.

What would you say are the biggest challenges that you face and how do you deal with them?

Finance. The work ethic to keep on doing the writing when I know that I am short of money and then have to go away on another venture to make films or do radio or whatever.

I try to be disciplined. This is much harder than anyone can imagine. The hurdle after a hiatus brings with it the terror of wondering whether what you write has any relevance or meaning or quality at all.

How many genres do you work in?

I think I have written about forty short stories. Five theatre plays. Zillions of film scripts and adverts. Many radio plays for SABC, Zimbabwe Radio and the BBC.

I have many published short stories all over the world; a collection of poetry; one children's book on Arabian fables; a book which is to-ing and fro-ing about Islam and life in the modern Middle East; three half completed novels and one that is complete and in the final stage of edit -- which is terrible.

Princess of Arabia, the book of folktales, was published by Zodiac Press. My short stories have also appeared in the Caine Prize anthologies and in Irene Staunton’s various anthologies. I have also been published in anthologies by Silverfish books in Malaysia, as well as in Ireland for the West Cork Literary Festival.

The other novel, as yet unfinished, is untitled and based on the corruption of life with rigid rules in Arabia.

Plays I have written include, “Friends” which is based on the life of John Bradburne, the man who lived with the lepers during the bush war and “Colours“ which was adapted for radio by the BBC.

Are there any links or connections between your writing and the work you are doing on film and radio?

The main connection is that it is communication.

I am currently writing another play for the BBC -- so the writing can join the disciplines together sometimes. The bad thing about it is that it does tire you creatively and then it is doubly difficult to get from a news-reading desk to the computer for a script.

Do you write everyday?

Yes, every day but not always on the same thing though. The hardest pieces are the ones I try to put on the back burner which is the worst thing any writer could do. For example, “The Reluctant Mombe” was really tough. I had the experience of meeting a woman in the situation of being forgotten as a person of age. To try and retain truth and be honest at the same time took some soul-searching as well as being ruthless.

The story began when I was employed by the BBC to interview old people who had been forgotten by their families and who where living in penury. To divorce oneself from the horrible reality of seeing old people who had grown up with hope and now felt discarded was very hard. Mortality and the finiteness of human loyalties and love were the issues I had to contend with and in fact divorce myself from when I wrote the piece.

The other hard piece is section of my novel which deals with Zimbabwe -- again the same problem -- divorcing myself from the realities of a hard-felt life.

What is the novel about?

The Disappointed Diplomat is about the role of a young man trying to forget his home in Zimbabwe and finding that home is not only a place but a state of mind. . He walks away from the woman he has fallen in love with and asks the question, "Perhaps the bus driver will know the way home…”

The man is trying to forget the heartache of a broken love affair -- both with his country and with his black girlfriend ( he is white). He has to deal with the expectations of the English establishment and, much like the people who search out spies for their own cause, he feels he is being courted for reasons beyond his comprehension.

He never does have the full answers. Perhaps the novel is more of a journey to a stage where he can at least ask the salient question knowing that there will be another journey ahead.

Which aspects of the work that you put into the book did you find most difficult?

The middle section of the novel which is about Zimbabwe -- the passion I have for my home and the plethora of ideas were too much for the shape and structure -- the old "more is less" dictum was very hard to follow.

I love Zimbabwe like no other place and can so fully understand the need to justify ones existence by having a piece of land -- which was why the war was fought -- or partly anyway. And perhaps that too is part of the problem -- that our unflinching loyalty to the land has caused a blinkered attitude to the realities of what and how we are governed. You see, like most of us in the Diaspora, the ‘Zimbabwe’ we think of is romanticised into a nirvana which in fact is not a reality.

I am working in the Middle East now as I could not afford to continue teaching at the University of Zimbabwe. and this poverty affects me. How does it affect people in the bush? I know how it affects them. But do I see the starving bellies and the hopeless eyes of the street kids? Ah no... just like the chefs I pass by in my car and wonder if the old man they are leading to beg alms for is really blind. Of course I know he is not but I also see the kids are hungry. I see people rolling up their windows as if they are trying to press a nosegay to their face to avoid a bad smell. Ah yes, I can see -- but I do not really look -- and that is a crime.

The mirror is an unkind place. Yet we all sit back and wait for the old man to die and wish for a better future. It was the same with Ian Smith and with Welensky etc .... a blinkered reaction to the reality.

I will never leave Zimbabwe for ever -- it is inconceivable -- I have lived in many places in the world picking up stories and experiences. But home is Zimbabwe. I do not think it will get better soon. Rankness in Denmark is not as easily assuaged as it was in the final act of Hamlet. From cheating sanctions during Smiths days to doing black market in Mugabe's days is the same behaviour and we have grown up to think only in those terms. To conceive of a straight society where you change money in a bank for real is ridiculous. We have never done it. That is how deep the level of damage has been.

What sets The Disappointed Diplomat apart from the other things you have written?

It is a novel. My metier is poetry and short stories.

I had too much to say. The long form was also a challenge and I had to push myself further

In what way is it similar?

Good question -- from the short form to the long form was the mission -- and finally I had to employ the same writing technique -- spare writing. I was not inclined to do that in the beginning and the first number of drafts were pedestrian and unprofessional.

It was a learning curve to be able to spill out as much as possible for the story -- then realise that the same techniques of short story could be used as well to convey meaning and narrative. I started by putting too much into the story -- overwriting and making basic errors. Re-reading ensured that I had to edit and make it more professional.

What will your next book be about?

An action and cruel novella about the undercurrents of life and the questionable morality of living in Dubai. Drug importation, pimping … the list goes on and on … despite the maxim of the prophet. A man would be married and have two boyfriends for sex. The more rules you impose on a people, the more they seem to want to break them. I would come home to my house and find blocks of pure resin being sliced up for sale in the market as unadulterated coke and dagga. Wrong?

Who can say? But it does beg many questions -- and perhaps I saw the similarity of the corruption of soul in our country to what the Arabs are doing in this plastic Dubai where western society has taken over their sleepy life and left them feeling disassociated.

Related books:

,,

Possibly related articles:

• John Eppel [Interview_1], Conversations with Writers, September 12, 2007.
• Literature in Zimbabwe, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala.

[Interview] Kay Green

Kay Green's stories have been appearing in literary magazines and journals and for nearly two decades. Fifteen of the short stories appear in Jung's People (2004), her first collection of short stories, while others have been featured in anthologies that include The Elastic Book of Numbers (2005).

Her poetry has been published in literary journals such as acumen, Iota, Envoi and Orbis.

In addition to writing, Green has edited anthologies that include Digitally Organic: An Earlyworks Press Poetry Anthology (2007); Porkies: Pigtales of the Unexpected (2006); Survival Guides: An Earlyworks Press Fiction Anthology (2006); Routemasters and Mushrooms: An Earlyworks Press Poetry Anthology (2006); and The Sleepless Sands: Earlyworks Press High Fantasy Challenge (2006).

In a recent interview, Kay Green spoke about her writing.

Your first collection of short stories, Jung’s People, was published by Elastic Press in 2004. How did this happen?

Fantasy and mythology are my favourite areas of operation. When Jung’s People was proposed, I had published several pieces for Trevor Denyer’s Legend -- a magazine of Arthurian and traditional fantasy. Andrew Hook had the splendid idea of looking for writers who were beginning to make a name for themselves in a particular area in small press writing and giving them a first chance at assembling a book of their own. It was a great opportunity for me.

Since then, as well as the launch of my own book, I’ve attended three other Elastic Press launches -- two of anthologies I had work in and one for Nick Jackson’s Visits to the Flea Circus. (I would have attended more but for some reason the train service always do engineering works when I decide to go to London.) I love them because they are full of small press people -- the individualists, the ones with the ideas you won’t see in the top 100 fastsellers.

For me, one of the stars of the Elastic Press stable is Gary Couzens who first attracted my attention with his story "Eggshells" which he calmly writes from the point of view of a pregnant woman -- and it works. A rare skill in a man, that. I think his anthology, Second Contact is still available at Elastic Press.

Two of your stories have also been runners-up for the David Gemmell Cup. Which two stories were these? Did you write them specifically for the competition?

They were written in the early ‘80s. One, "Time to Learn" was republished in Jung’s People -- the other was called "Coming Home", I think. It’s never been published so it’s only a memory now. It was (I now find) a good prediction: it proposed that we never would go for all-out nuclear holocaust but rather exhaust the civilised world with an ever-increasing patchwork of ‘small wars’. It came second in the David Gemmell Cup competition in 1990, and I won £30.

Getting money for writing was a new and exciting idea for me at that time. I didn’t write the stories especially for the competition but entered them because I liked David Gemmell’s work so rather cheekily thought, ‘well then he’ll probably like mine!’

What would you say are your main concerns as a writer?

You. Me. The individual. We are monkeys who learned to tell lies -- I mean stories. It's where imagination came from and I believe a good story can do more than a million statesmen could to improve our situation.)

How is this so? How can a story change a situation?

I think that although we’ve developed a great tradition of being logical and intellectual, when you look at what we (as a species) actually do, we react to our feelings, our stories, our music, and this is at least as important as our science and our ‘thinking’. We only think about what we should do. What we actually do comes from the heart. Our actions are influenced by our stories and our religion in the same way that they are influenced by our schooling and our news reports. We don’t really distinguish that much. It’s not the outright lies on the news that annoy me -- they are easy to spot -- but the pernicious, flawed story-telling is terrible.

I detest stories that treat war and cruelty as simple entertainment and I celebrate those that do the opposite -- the realist stories that show humans as thinking, seeking beings, the fantasies that value the creative and the magical over the destructive.

My generation grew up with Genesis story-songs (the band, not the bible) and J.R.R. Tolkien. We thought we were good, peaceful folk who’d inherited a tired and flawed world. Many of us are having great difficulty coming to terms with the fact that war, racism, sexism and all the rest of it didn’t end when we grew up. Now, we are beginning to realise that the stories we read weren’t really perfect. The race problems are endemic in Tolkien for example. We’re still working on it. That’s how people use story. David Gemmell was a progression from the Tolkien stance in that his female characters thought and acted in the world and had sex-drives. I’d like to see more fantasy-lovers moving up another step and trying Ursula le Guin.

What would you say are the biggest challenges that you face? And, how do you deal with them?

Cruelty, violence, poverty, bureaucracy, the end of the world (and the things I don't understand about my PC).

A couple of years ago there was a murder in the park opposite where I live. The police advised women not to go out alone until the case was solved. It was never solved. They never rescinded the advice, and I was living alone. If I’d done as they asked I’d still be trembling behind the sofa. I dealt with the fear as we all usually do, by swallowing hard and ignoring it.

On a larger scale, let me extend the ‘my generation’ theme. We knew that the foolish old people had built up a nuclear arsenal that could kill us all at any moment. We grew up over-shadowed by the Cold War and all the fear that went with it. Have you seen those old American newsreels of kids practising protecting themselves from nuclear detonations by covering their heads with their school jackets? I remember hearing about government leaflets going round in the U.K. explaining how to make yourself a last-minute nuclear shelter from a couple of doors. I don’t know if it was true but we all believed it and the television dramas of the time were all about the few who survived the nuclear holocaust we were waiting for.

We thought we had the answers though, and if the world was still there when we grew up it’d all be solved. Now we’re trying to tell ourselves the escalation of torture, internment and war around the world is all the fault of politicians whose names begin with ‘B’. The trouble is, it’s our fault now and we need to read, write, think about it, and when we’ve worked it out, we need to DO something.

I think the folks who grew up with Tolkein (and who are now consuming Harry Potter) have a head start on the ones who grew up on the spy-stories of the post war era -- but we still need to solve a lot of problems so we’re still looking for better stories.

By the way, I know story-weaving is only a small part of what needs to be done but it’s my part so I’m allowed to go on about it and ignore re-negotiating third world debt, outlawing detention without trial and all the other things that need doing.

What will your next book be about?

I've got a bad case of multi-tasking at the moment. I'm just finishing an exam course guide for teachers, editing an anthology of literary fiction for my own press -- Earlyworks Press -- but as for my own work, when I manage to get back to it I'm working on a novel set in 'the Dark Ages', concerning some of the people who recorded the stories for us at that time.

It’s been bubbling around everything I’ve done for two or three years. It carries aspects of our culture and history into an arena where modern minds can relate to them. People need an on-going mythology to define themselves or measure themselves by. That’s what culture is; and I feel that the speed and power of commercial ‘myth-making’ these days is allowing the few who control the mass media to steal our culture from us. I’m trying to fight back.

Which aspects of the work that you put into the book did you find most difficult?

Deciding what to do about names and place in Welsh and old English with variable spellings and pronunciations, most of them quite mystifiying to modern readers' eyes. What would you think of a character called Goleuddydd?

The most difficult points nearly always contain the most enjoyable. Consider 'Yspaddaden' It sounds something like 'Yuspadathen' and is the name of the hawthorn giant. I love it.

Are you going to retain the Welsh and Old English names or are you going to 'modernize' them?

I don’t know about modernize, but I want to make sure the result is comfortable and readable. You know, Shakespeare was vulgar, popular entertainment in his day. He’d be astonished at the effort people have to make to understand his jokes these days. If the world and the language change, you have to change texts to keep them ‘the same’ in effect.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Finding out about me! Sometimes I look back at things I've written ten years before and think 'oh, so that's what that was about!'

Writing, reading, thinking -- they’re all the things I do in between ‘doing’ that help me to process and understand the world and my part in it -- see the monkeys comment above -- I think most people’s minds are usually at least 5 years behind on understanding why they do what they do. The ‘conscious’ intellectual part of the human brain is a recent addition tacked on to the front end. The huge, ancient organism behind it is in the driving seat far more often than we realise. Its language is what we experience in our dreams. I believe that failing to understand its workings is the root of the violence and destruction around us. This was C. G. Jung’s message to the world, and the stories collected in Jung’s People are my contribution to carrying his work onward into my generation. And for me personally, writing is an incredibly useful way of focusing and checking up on what’s really going on at the back of my mind.

Related books:

,,

Interview [1] _ John Eppel

In addition to writing short stories, John Eppel is also an award-winning poet and novelist.

His list of achievements is impressive. His first novel, D.G.G. Berry’s The Great North Road (1992), won the M-Net Prize in South Africa. His second novel, Hatchings (1993), was short-listed for the M-Net Prize and his third novel, The Giraffe Man (1994), has been translated into French.

His first poetry collection, Spoils of War (1989), won the Ingrid Jonker Prize. Other poems have been featured in anthologies that include The Heart in Exile South African Poetry in English 1990-1995 (1996) while his short stories have appeared in anthologies that include Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (2005).

In a recent email interview, John Eppel spoke about his writing.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

About age 12. Around that time I stopped believing in God, I became consciously aware of my mortality, I began to feel uneasy about my privileged status as a white boy, and I fell in love with a girl who barely noticed me. So even at that age, it was a sense of loss combined with a flair for rhyme, which made me want to become a writer. Perhaps because I’m left-handed, I think metaphorically, which is the way lyric poets apprehend the world.

Who would you say has influenced you the most?

British writers and, marginally, North American and European writers. In my formative years I had no access to literature in English which was coming out of Africa and other colonised parts of the world. Our teachers in primary school were expats from England, Wales and Scotland, and they were very patriotic about the homes they had abandoned. Our little heads were stuffed with characters like Robin Hood, King Arthur, and the Billy Goats Gruff.

Two writers who have had quite a strong influence on me are Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy (the poet, not the novelist); Dickens for his humour, his characterisation and his concern for the marginalised people of his world; Hardy for his exquisite sense of loss, not just personal loss but the loss that is felt by an entire people in times of dramatic socio-political change. I’ve also been influenced by the great satirist poets, in particular Chaucer and Pope.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

My main concern in my poetry is to find a voice, which merges British form (prosody) with African content (mostly nature) so that, if not in my life, in my art, I can find an identity which is not binary, not black/white, African/European colonizer/colonized. My main concern in my prose is to ridicule greed, cruelty, self-righteousness and related vices like racism, sexism, jingoism, and homophobia. Of course I am under no illusion that my satires will make the slightest bit of difference, but nobody, not even those who are ashamed of nothing, likes to be laughed at. I am also acutely aware that satirists are themselves prone to self-righteousness and I keep before me the words of Jesus: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

As a younger person, in the 70s and 80s I was quite preoccupied with guilt and self-loathing, a crisis of identity -- all the baggage of apartheid. But now, after a quarter of a century in independent Zimbabwe, things have balanced out a bit. In the last seven years especially, the now tiny settler community (the few filthy rich wheeler-dealers notwithstanding) seems to have paid (and continues to pay) its dues. The government controlled media, aping the ZANU PF hierarchy spews out virulent anti-white propaganda reminiscent of Rwanda just before the genocide. We are called scum, insects, Blair’s kith and kin. The once neutral Ndebele word for a white person, Makiwa, now has pejorative connotations equivalent to mabhunu (boer) or even kaffir.

I am beginning to see bad behaviour more in terms of class than race. Blacks with political connections, who have been catapulted into shocking wealth, the so-called middle class (in a country where 80% of the people live in abject poverty) behave just as badly as their white counterparts behave. They are Rhodies too; their desire for ostentation, parading their Pajeros (the women at 40 km per hour!) and their Mercedes Benzes, acquiring not one suburban home but a dozen; not one farm but a dozen; not one overseas trip per year but a dozen, makes me sick at heart.

Something else which deeply concerns me is the place, the “soil”, the people where I grew up and where I still live: Matabeleland. But here a dark cloud hovers above me. I grew up speaking, not Ndebele but fanakalo, a kind of 'lingua franca', which originated in the gold mines of South Africa where migrant workers speaking many different languages were employed. It is a language of oppression which I have not been able to unlearn and which interferes with my attempts to speak proper Ndebele. I am always afraid of accidentally saying something offensive; consequently I keep quiet or speak in English. Most Africans, even those with little formal education, speak several languages.

The spirit of Matabeleland is to be experienced most potently in the Matobo hills, which were inhabited thousands of years ago by the aboriginal people of this region. They left a legacy of awesome rock paintings. It is also the location of a sacred shrine (at Njelele) revered by Ndebele and Shona alike; it is a retreat for Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus and poets. It is epiphanic!

How have your personal experiences influenced the direction of your writing?

A lot, of course. I was four years old when my parents emigrated to Rhodesia from South Africa. My father was a miner; my mother was a housewife. They never owned one square inch of this land. When my parents left Zimbabwe shortly after Independence they took with them an old Volvo station-wagon stuffed with their worldly goods, and a meagre pension. So when I get lumped by the new colonisers, the NGOs (shortly to be replaced by the Chinese), with tobacco barons, safari operators, and mining magnates, it is a personal experience I resent, and it nourishes the satirist in me.

The experience of fatherhood, on the other hand, and being a school teacher, and, yes, a lover, have enriched me beyond words. That’s the bitter logic of lyric poetry: expressing the inexpressible.

When I was in my early twenties, the girl I was hoping to marry, was killed in a car accident. In my late twenties I spent two years in the Rhodesian army. I lived for several years in England working variously as a steam cleaner, picker, packer, furniture remover, nightwatchman, assistant on a cargo ship. As a Rhodesian I was labelled a fascist; as a Zimbabwean I was labelled (at least in the early years of Independence) as a Marxist-Leninist. These are all personal experiences, which have influenced my direction as a writer. Of course there are many others, not least being the ageing process, and the prospect of having to work until I drop dead.

What would you say are the biggest challenges that you face?

The same challenges that most Zimbabweans face, linked to the economic collapse of the country: how to pay the bills, how to put food on the table; how to stay alive as long as possible because it’s too expensive to get sick and die. There is no social welfare left in this country, the extended family system has collapsed; pension funds and other savings have been looted by people with huge bellies and wallets of flesh on the backs of their necks. And then there is AIDS.

Zimbabwe is, de facto, a police state. It is routine now for people to be beaten up in prison, whether or not they have been charged. People live in fear as well as hunger and illness. People are depressed. Those who can’t get out, turn their faces to the wall. There is no culture of maintenance, there is no accountability, there will always be someone else to blame. Like the Jews in history, the whites, and to a lesser extent, the Indians, have become scapegoats. When these marginalized groups have gone, it will be the turn of the Ndebeles. Then, God help this country. You ask me why all this is happening. It’s simple. It’s because of a megalomaniac who refuses to relinquish power.

How do you deal with these challenges?

I write, I work hard, I cherish the company of my children and my few friends; I drink more than I should; I fall in love! In between I read and listen to the BBC World Service. I used to watch videos but my machine broke down and I can’t afford to have it repaired. The same goes for my washing machine, my music centre, my electric frying pan, my jaffle machine and my toaster. You see, I was once quite rich for a schoolteacher.

Maybe I should get more politically involved, but it’s difficult if you are white. You tend to become a liability to the party if it’s in opposition to this government.

How many books have you written so far?

About eleven. My first book of poems, Spoils of War, was published in 1989 by a small press in Cape Town called Carrefour (now defunct). It took me twelve years to get it published. Baobab Books in Harare rejected it. It won the Ingrid Jonker prize.

My first novel, D. G. G. Berry’s The Great North Road took me fifteen years to find a publisher. No Zimbabwean publisher, including Baobab Books, was interested in it. It won the M-Net prize. Only five hundred copies were printed. My second novel, Hatchings, was shortlisted for the M-net prize. In the same year I wrote a third novel, The Giraffe Man. Both were published in South Africa.

When my second book of poems, Sonata for Matabeleland, came out in in 1995, Baobab Books, for the first time, reluctantly put their logo on its cover. It was published by Snailpress in Cape Town, and Baobab’s commitment was to undertake to sell 100 of the 1000 copies printed. As it turned out I sold seventy of those at my launch in Bulawayo. Most of the remaining 30 were sold through the Bulawayo Art Gallery.

My next two novels, The Curse of the Ripe Tomato and The Holy Innocents, were provisionally accepted by Baobab Books, on the recommendation of Anthony Chennells. Nothing was done about them for several years and then Baobab Books collapsed. Then I and some friends created ‘amaBooks publishers for the initial purpose of getting those two novels into print. We got started thanks to a generous donation by an ex-pupil of mine called Ilan Elkaim. International donors like HIVOS and SIDA and the British Council will not support white Zimbabwean writers, no matter how poor they may be. These novels were published in 2001 and 20002. In 2004 ‘amaBooks brought out The Caruso of Colleen Bawn and other Short Writings and they may, finances permitting, bring out my most recent book, White Man Crawling and other Short Writings, next year.

Incidentally, I submitted the last named book to Kwela Books in South Africa. It was rejected on the basis of this reader’s report -- I quote the final paragraph: “While the author has a pleasant conversational writing style and some stories are fairly well written, it is doubtful whether this collection is publishable as it stands. Even if the African setting of some stories might have suited Kwela’s publishing philosophy, this is not a truly original African voice, let alone an original South African voice.”

In 2001 Childline published my Selected Poems 1965-1995, and in 2005, Weaver Press published eighty of my poems in a collection called Songs My Country Taught Me. Last year Hatchings, with an introduction by Dr K. M. Mangwanda was re-published by ‘amaBooks.

How much time do you spend on your writing?

Very little. Like most serious writers I earn almost nothing from my books. I teach full time at Christian Brothers College. In between I give private lessons, and I also teach Creative Writing modules (which I wrote) for UNISA. I am also a single parent so I have untold household chores to perform. I reserve school holidays to catch up on my reading and writing. That is why I now find very short stories an appropriate form.

Photo credit: Ben Williams, Books LIVE

Related articles:

• John Eppel [Interview_2], Conversations with Writers, September 7, 2011
• Discarded [Short Story], By John Eppel, The Warwick Review, Vol. 3 No. 2, June 2009
• Class, Not Race, War Grips Zimbabwe, By Tafi Murinzi, Inter Press Service News Agency, April 24, 2005

'Diary of an Asylum Seeker': Anatomy of A Work In Progress

I’ve taken a leaf off George Bernard Shaw’s book and have written a very long introduction to my work in progress, the Diary of an Asylum Seeker.

The introduction is really a ‘back story’ in that it shows part of how the Diary came about; it shows part of how I’ve been working on the Diary and it shows part of the reception the Diary has received so far.

I started working on what is becoming the Diary of an Asylum Seeker in late 2004 or early 2005 after coming into contact with the Assist Service, a medical practice which provides specialized primary health care for asylum seekers in Leicester. There, one of the people I was and still am in dialogue with is Jan Moore, the practice therapist, who suggested that I keep a diary. Which I did. For about a week or two.

I wish I’d kept the diary more religiously. I wish I’d kept it like medicine. I didn’t. I tell myself that the reason for this was because, soon afterwards, I started writing a lot about asylum seekers, about who they are, about the pressures that force them to leave home and country, about the countries they claim asylum in and the reception they receive in those countries. Some these articles have been published in places that include UK Indymedia, Worldpress.org, OhmyNews International, Labour Left Briefing and the British Journal of Occupational Therapy.

In both the fiction and non-fiction writing that I do, each time I focus on a subject, I do a lot of reading around it and I make extensive notes on it. In some cases, the subject dominates or takes over and I start living for it. Writing about the subject becomes the reason why I’m here, it becomes the reason why I’m alive. It becomes difficult to stop thinking about it and I start talking about it incessantly. Aspects of the subject also invade my dreams when I sleep and I start living them intensely that way. Because of this, the diary became a journal and then it became a notebook on asylum seekers and aspects of the immigration and asylum system and then it became a journal and then it became a diary. And then I thought, “Instead of writing newsy stuff about all this, why not a short story or a novel that will focus of a day, a week, a month or a year in the life of an asylum seeker?”

The Diary of an Asylum Seeker was born out of these questions.

While I can’t think of a novel focusing on the life of an asylum seeker or a group of asylum seekers, that’s been written in the form of a diary, I’m aware that there’s a body of work out there which, each in its own way, sheds light on how dehumanizing the asylum process can be. One of these works is the highly original and influential play, The Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead. Another is the novel, Refugee Boy by the indefatigable Benjamin Zephaniah.

The Diary of an Asylum Seeker is a work in progress. I intend to push the narrative as hard as I can and see if I can’t turn it into a novel.

Because it’s a work in progress, it’s not static: a sentence will change, here, and another one will change, there; paragraphs will be added, others will be moved; new entries will be made while other entries will be removed… such is the life of a work in progress.

If I manage to pull it off, I think the Diary will be a double-first in Zimbabwean literature. It’s already the first attempt at a novel in the form of a blog by a Zimbabwean writer. If I pull it off, it’ll be the first such novel by a Zimbabwean writer.

Even though it’s a work in progress, the Diary has been well received.

Its very first version received a commendation in the 2005 Leicester and Leicestershire Library Services Annual Short Story Contest. A year later, a slightly different version was published on both the U.S.-based Glimpse Abroad website and in the Glimpse Foundation’s quarterly magazine. This year, extracts from the Diary were published in the second issue of Tripod Magazine. Another extract, "Living on Promises and Credit" (which was written in 2002 and which I intend to integrate into the Diary) was published in Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2005).

I’ve also received some very interesting and encouraging comments from some of the world’s finest writers. For example, Maurice Suckling, the versatile computer games scriptwriter and author of the collection of short stories, Photocopies of Heaven (Elastic Press, 2006) said, “Crickey… That’s pretty [fill in appropriate adjective here, since I don’t know how to sum that up in one word].

“When do you think this novel might be finished?”

H. Nigel Thomas, author of the critically acclaimed collection of short stories, Spirits in the Dark (House of Anansi Press, 1993) and Why We Write: Conversations with African Canadian Poets and Novelists (TSAR Publications, 2006) said, “The writing is forceful. It takes skill and experience, I think, to produce excellent fiction using the epistolary mode, and the excerpts you posted attest to this.”

Gordon Hauptfleisch, in his review of Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe, described “Living on Promises and Credit” as “earnest and affecting.”

To go back to Maurice Suckling’s question -- I have every intention of finishing the novel.

Although I haven’t been updating the version of the Diary which appears on the blog, Immigrant Diaries, I’ve been working on it in earnest since about February of this year. In April, the winds rose and it’s been taking a lot of energy to just stay on my feet. When the winds settle down, as they are bound to, the novel should start moving more markedly. Until them, I’ll continue doing what I always do… my best. The material is there in my own life and in the lives of the asylum seekers I’m in contact with. The challenge is to see if I can tell this story in 50,000 words or more and still be able to hold the reader’s attention right through to the end.

This article was first published by Blogcritics.org.

[Interview] Valerie Tagwira

Valerie Tagwira is a Zimbabwean medical doctor, an author and a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Her debut novel, The Uncertainty of Hope is set in the densely populated suburb of Mbare, Harare, and explores the complex lives of Onai Moyo -- a market woman and mother of three children -- and her best friend, Katy Nguni -- a vendor and black-market currency dealer. The novel gives an insight into the challenges faced by a wide cross section of Zimbabwe, where life expectancy has dropped to 37, possibly the lowest in the world.

In 2005, Operation Murambatsvina, the government's controversial urban slum clearance program, created over half a million internally displaced persons and destroyed the livelihoods of close to 10 percent of the population. Eighty percent of the country's population is unemployed.

In this interview, Valerie Tagwira talks about the concerns that influenced her novel:

What would you say The Uncertainty of Hope is about?

It is a novel set in contemporary Zimbabwe. It looks at poverty, homelessness, H.I.V./AIDS, domestic violence, and a host of other socioeconomic challenges of the day. It is also a story about surviving against the odds and, hopefully, gives an insight into the intricacies of contemporary Zimbabwe with respect to how people are trying to survive.

When I initially started thinking about writing, I had a desire to do something different… something creative, and because I'm something of a "mild feminist" at heart, I always knew that I would write something featuring strong female characters. Writing about contemporary Zimbabwe was a natural choice because I am very much attached to "home" and I travel back quite frequently. At each visit, it strikes me how the living standards are deteriorating, and at each visit, I never imagine that things can get any worse, but they do, and people still survive. I was particularly concerned about how women deal with the challenges that are thrust upon them.

When I started writing the book, being a woman was my motivation, but I also had a strong interest in socioeconomic, developmental, and health-related issues that affect women. I wanted to highlight the plight of the disadvantaged in modern day Zimbabwe… the poor. This encompasses the homeless, be they adults or street children, the unemployed, and all the employed and ex-middle classes who are now living below the poverty datum line. It includes everyone who cannot afford basic necessities like food, clothing, education, and access to healthcare…

Among the disadvantaged in Zimbabwe, are there groups that are more vulnerable than others?

In each of the groups I've mentioned, I think women (and the girl-child) are worse off than their male counterparts.

What is life like for these women and children?

Extremely difficult.

They have been disempowered, and have very little or no means with which to make their lives better. The issues discussed in the novel have touched most people either directly or indirectly because there is now so much poverty in Zimbabwe.

To me, it feels as if most things are collapsing, be it industry, the health system, or the education system… you name it, it's going… deteriorating. Even the judicial system is struggling. The current political situation and the country's negative publicity certainly don't help. All these have the combined effect of making life very difficult for the people.

Also, women are more likely to be unemployed, less educated, and less in control of their lives because of cultural and biological reasons, all of which makes them even more vulnerable. The collapsing health system in Zimbabwe has placed an even bigger burden on women, who are naturally expected to be caregivers. For example, childbearing necessitates the provision of obstetric services which, for the greater proportion of women, are now out of reach, even at a very basic level. I can see a situation where pregnancy and childbirth are soon going to be gratuitously risky. In addition to this, women's role as caregivers now brings with it the extra burden of looking after family and friends with H.I.V./AIDS.

Is there a solution?

In my opinion, this is where the uncertainty about the future of Zimbabweans lies. If a solution is ever to come, I don't know when it will be or how it will come. What I'm sure of is that drastic changes have to take place in order for the lives of ordinary people to improve.

What can/should be done to improve the lives of women and children in Zimbabwe?

Empowerment through education, employment creation, affirmative action where possible (as long as this does not lower standards), and generally making resources available to the population.

This can be effected by government leaders as they are the ones in charge of policy-making processes and allocating funds to various sectors.

I must also say it was heartening to see the Domestic Violence Act come into being in 2006. To me, this was a demonstration of an awareness of the significance of domestic violence and its negative effects. It will go a long way toward protecting the rights of women and children. They are affected to a greater extent than men, who are more likely to be perpetrators of violence and abuse. The women's coalition which campaigned for the bill had representatives from women with different political and social affiliations. This provided a window of hope that if women can come together to pursue a common goal, they can bring about positive changes in a patriarchal society which tends to put men's interests before those of women and children.

N.G.O.'s and the donor community also have the capacity to complement government efforts aimed at improving the lives of women and children. And at grassroots level, communities do have a duty of care toward the next disadvantaged person. As the core unit of society, the family setup has a very important role to play as well.

Which aspects of the work that you put into The Uncertainty of Hope did you find most difficult?

The novel is quite long, and for each of the characters, I had to maintain consistency throughout, taking into account various interpersonal relationships.

I did find that a challenge. I don't know if I got it right. I suppose I will be able to tell from how the novel is received.

What did you enjoy most?

Working with my editor.

I was able to participate in the editing process, which was a great learning experience. Basically, this involved checking the manuscript for errors, consistency, language, etc. Being in medicine for so long and not reading as much as I did when I was younger made me feel that my English had gone rusty so this was a great opportunity to "revise" language skills as well.

How did you decide on a publisher?

I didn't decide on a publisher as such. I heard about Weaver Press from my cousin and I rang them to ask about manuscript submission.

I was very fortunate to have my manuscript accepted, and to have Irene Staunton as my editor. She is very supportive and serious about the work she does.

In the writing that you are doing, who would you say has influenced you the most?

My parents. They were teachers, and I was always surrounded by books from a very early age. I developed a love for books because of their influence.

I read anything that I could get my hands on. This included the Benny and Betty series, the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene, volumes of fairy tales, Enid Blyton, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Catherine Cookson, [Charles] Mungoshi, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi [wa Thiong'o] (and many more). My favorite Shona novels were: Pafunge, Ziva Kwawakabva, Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva, Rurimi Inyoka, and Maidei. The list goes on and on…

What are your main concerns as a writer?

My biggest challenge is how to juggle family life, my medical career, and still find enough time to work on my writing. My career makes it impossible for me to have enough time to write as much as I would like to.

How do you deal with this?

When I have to write, I just make sure that I set aside time to do so, which might mean giving up some leisure time. I enjoy writing so much that I don't mind terribly when I have to give up something else in order to write.

While I was working on the novel, I tried to make time for about three writing sessions per week. Each session was at least three hours during the week and much longer, with short breaks, during weekends, and involved expanding the manuscript, rewriting, checking for mistakes, inconsistencies, the usual… and later, working with the editor to shape the story into something worthy of being called a novel.

What will your next book be about?

I recently came across some disturbing U.N. statistics on child abuse in Zimbabwe. I would like to find out more about this sometime in the future and see if I can write a book which looks at that theme.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Several years ago… sometime in my late twenties. I can't remember the exact age.

It was one of those vague ideas that kept crossing my mind time and again. However, because of work and study, I never seemed to have the time to settle down and commit myself to writing. I only started working on my novel earnestly toward the end of 2005, when I made a conscious decision to start working and get on with it, instead of daydreaming about being a writer one day.

I think I worked really hard once I started. It took me about ten months to complete the manuscript.

This article was first published by Worldpress.org.

Related article:

Jennifer Armstrong [Interview], Conversations with Writers, September 27, 2009