This episode is all about books to read when you’re struggling to read. We speak to A’Eyasha Kassiem, author of Suitcase of Memory, as well as Naledi Mashishi, whose debut novel is Invisible Strings.
The book that rescued Mervyn from a reading slump recently is Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, while Megan was saved by Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Carmen’s solution is essay collections, and she recommends A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib.
In this episode, we talk to Gabeba Baderoon and Desiree Lewis, the editors of a new collection, Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa, and the Book Lounge staff recommend local fiction they’ve loved recently. Jess recommends Hibiscus Coast by Nick Mulgrew, Belinda loved Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe, and Thandi talks about When the Village Sleeps by Sindiwe Magona.
This podcast is hosted by Vasti Calitz and produced by Andri Burnett.
We have been eagerly waiting for the publication of Nick Mulgrew’s debut novel, A Hibiscus Coast. It is a delightfully innovative, surprising, and warm-hearted meditation on family, loss, and home, as well as a deft examination of dislocation, dispossession, and the cultural blind spots of two very different (and in some ways similar) communities. Mervyn was lucky enough to get his hands on an advanced copy, and Nick graciously agreed to answer some questions about the novel.
You’ve been working on A Hibiscus Coast since 2013. Why do you think it has taken so long for you to complete the novel and is the final version substantially different to earlier drafts and if so, in what ways?
The difficulty with writing the novel was that for a long time I wasn’t a good enough writer to write it. I don’t mean this in a twee, “Oh, here comes the Imposter Syndrome” kind of way. It was a challenge of technique. I had to work out how best to tell a complicated story that stretches across families, countries, idioms, histories, and cultures, but in which all the action takes place in only a few locations and a relatively short amount of narrative time.
From 2013 to 2016, most of the time I spent working on A Hibiscus Coast consisted of repeated attempts at writing the first chapter, in which the protagonist Mary discovers her neighbours have been killed while she was at Christmas morning mass with her parents. A breakthrough came for me when I had the opportunity to take a two-month residency on Sylt, a famously bleak and isolated island off the German coast, where many South African writers have bravely gone to lose their minds. But there I was finally able to finish the first chapter, along with the rest of the first part, and a year later I finally finished the first draft. But then the first draft didn’t work, so I had to go at it again. From 2017 to 2019, I rewrote A Hibiscus Coast seven full times. Some passages or chapters were rewritten ten or maybe even fifteen times before they clicked.
You have published two collections of short stories and a poetry collection since starting the novel. Did working on other stories and in other genres impact on your writing process with the novel?
The books of stories and poems were what I did while I was working on the novel, but were also the things that helped me learn how to write the novel. This is not a conventional book, with all of the shifting perspectives and timeframes, not to mention the weird documents and transcripts that make up so much of the story — and so it needed to come about through non-conventional means.
Much of the novel takes place among a community of white South African expats in New Zealand. Was that the starting point of the story you wanted to tell and if so, what drew you to them as a subject?
I’ve always wanted to write about white South Africans living in New Zealand precisely because I was once a white South African who lived in New Zealand. It was as simple as that. I also loved the idea of writing something set in the late 90s. It was a terrifically strange time for South Africa and most South Africans; even as a young child I experienced a sort of cultural whiplash. Our media and politicians were telling us everything was New – as in New South Africa, you know – but if you peeled back the veneer, so much was still so old and rotten.
The importance (both symbolic and practical) of land is a key element of A Hibiscus Coast but the land under discussion in the novel is in New Zealand, not South Africa. Land ownership and the historical theft of land is obviously a huge issue in SA, but your novel encourages SA readers to remember that issues of access to land are pretty universal, albeit with very different politics and histories in different countries. Were you writing about land in New Zealand specifically with a SA readership in mind?
I was writing about land because land is our universal concern. For all their differences as modern nation states, It’s no co-incidence that South Africa and New Zealand both have significant populations of people who live in precarious and vulnerable situations: both countries have a history of dispossession by (predominantly) British settlers, and either imperfect or non-existent ways of addressing that dispossession today. As such, they’re countries in which colonialism isn’t historical; it’s a process that’s still very much in effect.
What gets lost in the “debate” about land — and I use scare quotes here because my belief is that many people who get involved in debates over land reform do so in bad faith — is that land is a predicate for human society, and for individuals’ security and comfort. And yet, the societies we live in continue to deny so many people access to land. What are the forces that continue to drive this ongoing dispossession, and why do societies continue to allow these forces to operate? It sounds very academic, but that question was something I kept on coming back to while I was writing this book — how do these forces act in our everyday lives, even in domestic settings?
Mary is a wonderful character at the heart of the novel. She’s not perfect – nobody is – but despite being sent from SA by her parents as a young almost-adult to join this community of expats in New Zealand, she manages to define herself to some extent outside of the group into which she’s been thrown. She is a very complex character, beautifully drawn, at the heart of the novel. She seems as a character to represent possibilities – the possibility to grow, to change and she adds a hopeful tone to the novel which would otherwise be missing. Tell us a little about the genesis of Mary and how difficult she was to write?
I wasn’t thinking about this while writing her, but Mary’s a bit like South Africa in the 1990s: full of potential, but too wracked by trauma to fully grasp the possibilities and opportunities in front of her. She was easy to write, though. Her world is the world I grew up in, and in such a world, growth and change is the only possibility of escape. Ultimately, privilege is a trap of ignorance, and I wanted to write about someone who wanted, and probably needed, to struggle free from it.
A Māori character (and his family) play a crucial role in the novel and indeed the conflict over land is between him and the white SA expats (so while internationalising the issue of land in your story, you’re not letting white South Africans off the hook). How much knowledge of Māori culture did you have going into this novel, how much did you you have to learn and how did you ensure that what you ended up with was authentic?
I knew too little and I still know too little. My first port of call — apart from revising the Māori I learned at school — was literature and literary criticism. And although there’s only so much you can learn from books — one of the novel’s plot points! — I spent a lot of time in libraries and archives both in KZN and New Zealand.
Most importantly, from the outset of my work on the novel, I had been in touch with the committee of the marae in Ōrewa, the town in which I used to live, and where much of the New Zealand side of the novel takes place. A marae is a difficult thing to explain to people not familiar with Pacific peoples, but it’s essentially a meeting-place for social and religious functions, and they can act as a centre for community-building purposes, too. The marae committee in Ōrewa helped me hugely, including reading the finished book and checking for anything that might be written in an insensitive or hurtful manner, or historically weird or incorrect, or simply taboo. I was also fortunate to have the
help of a number of historians and academics, some of whom are descended from the people who
would have originally lived around where Ōrewa is now.
In other words, the book passed through a lot of hands. Although its shortcomings or errors are mine alone, I hope there’s at least some care and consideration evident in it.
There’s a lot of trauma in the novel, yet there’s a playfulness that is central to the tone as well from the brilliantly absurd emails that are circulated among the expat community in New Zealand, to an equally absurd but hilarious author bio to the awful design of a poster designed for a serious cause. It’s extremely difficult to hold the tension between humour and trauma, but your humour doesn’t feel disrespectful. Was that tone always central to how you wanted to tell this story or is it something that grew into the novel over time?
The novel’s tone is a product of my having spent so much time with the book. The plot is on balance a very sad one, and if I had managed to write the book right the first time, so that it didn’t need to be rewritten, it probably would have ended up about as uplifting as JM Coetzee reading out the obituary pages. So I tried to find space for humour in the book. The longer I spent with it, though, I realised that not only did the book need it – I needed it.
There’s also the fact that, you know, life is like that. Light and shade, comedy and tragedy. In turbulent times and in turbulent places, you sometimes swing wildly from one to the other. Catholics have a party after a wake, but if we have enough of a party, chances are we’ll go to another wake at the end of it.
You left SA to study in Scotland not too long before the onset of Covid. I imagine that your vision for the last year and a bit and how it’s panned out have been vastly different (similar to many of us). How difficult was it for you to have the world turn upside down just as you embarked on a new chapter in your life?
It was terrible! In a way, my wife and I have only just arrived in Scotland, despite having lived here for almost two years now. I haven’t been able to enjoy the literary scene, or meet many people, or find a publisher who wants to bring out my books over here. Covid’s made the British literary scene even more myopic. But we do have a dog, so, you know, light and shade.
Imagine you’re a bookseller. A customer picks up A Hibiscus Coast and asks you what it’s about. You’ve got one sentence to capture them before they pick up another book from the table. What’s your sentence?
“I don’t work here.”
What are you reading at the moment?
I’ve just finished John Laband’s The Land Wars and Zoe Wicomb’s latest novel Still Life, and am trying to decide what to read next. Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence is on the table in front of me, and I’m a pretty anxious person, so I’ll probably go for that.
Clean Up by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola
Join lovable, passionate Rocket as she sets off on a mission to save a Caribbean island from plastic pollution!
When Rocket goes for a holiday to visit her grandparents, she’s shocked by the pollution that is spoiling their island home and putting the local sea life at risk. Can she think of a way to save the day?
This is a heartwarming, timely and empowering picture book, showing how we ALL can make a difference.
Dear Earth by Isabel Otter and Clara Anganuzzi
Tessa’s Grandpa is an explorer who has been on adventures all over the world. When they go out for walks together, Grandpa tells Tessa all about the amazing things he has seen, and it inspires her to write a letter to the Earth. Tessa’s wonderful letter details all the things she loves most about the Earth, and the importance of protecting it.
Green Giant by Katie Cottle
A beautiful eco-tale from the winner of the Batsford Prize 2017.
A young girl, Bea, and her dog, Iris, are staying with her grandad in the country. Bea is bored, but Iris’s adventures lead them to the small and rusty old greenhouse next door. Inside the greenhouse, Bea finds… a giant. A giant made entirely of plants and greenery. Bea is scared, but the giant reassures her and explains that he has escaped from the grey city. Bea and the giant become friends, but can they do anything to make the grey city, and the world, a greener place?
Lovely Beasts by Kate Gardner and Heidi Smith
A stunning debut picture book that encourages kids to look beyond first impressions by sharing unexpected details about seemingly scary wild animals like gorillas, rhinoceroses, and more.
Spiders are creepy. Porcupines are scary. Bats are ugly. Or are they…?
This captivating book invites you to learn more about awe-inspiring animals in the wild. After all, it’s best not to judge a beast until you understand its full, lovely life.
Secrets of the Mountain by Libby Walden and Richard Jones
Our mountain watches over us – steadfast and strong…
Discover the secrets of the mountain in this stunning picture book. Watch the world transform as day turns to night and explore the never-ending possibilities of nature as you travel up and down the mountain.
A Way with Wild Things by Larissa Theule and Sara Palacios
Poppy loves bugs, and can usually be found carrying on conversations with ladybirds or sitting outside among the brightly coloured wildflowers, but good luck spotting her indoors and around people!
This poetic and evocative story celebrates the shy and introverted kids among us, as well as the other small creatures to be found if we look closely enough.
We’re back for season two! In this episode, Mervyn talks to Damon Galgut about his new novel, The Promise. We chat about the difficulty of categorising science fiction and fantasy in a bookstore, and hear some sci-fi recommendations from staff. Carmen recommends The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Luami recommends NK Jemisen’s The Broken Earth Trilogy as well as Exhalation by Ted Chiang.
This podcast is hosted by Vasti Calitz and produced by Andri Burnett.
In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.
Concrete Kids is an exploration of love and loss, melody and bloodshed. Musician, playwright, and educator Amyra León takes us on a poetic journey through her childhood in Harlem, as she navigates the intricacies of foster care, mourning, self-love, and resilience. In her signature free-verse style, she invites us all to dream with abandon–and to recognize the privilege it is to dream at all.
In Imaginary Borders environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses his art and his activism to show that climate change is a human issue that can’t be ignored. He visualizes a future that allows us to direct our anger, fear, and passion toward creating change. Because, at the end of the day, we all have a part to play.
In The New Queer Conscience, LGBTQIA+ activist Adam Eli argues the urgent need for queer responsibility — that queers anywhere are responsible for queers everywhere. Eli calls on his Jewish faith to underline how kindness and support within the queer community can lead to a stronger global consciousness. More importantly, he reassures us that we’re not alone.
In Taking on the Plastic Crisis youth activist Hannah Testa shares with readers how she led a grassroots political campaign to successfully pass state legislation limiting single-use plastics and how she influenced global businesses to adopt more sustainable practices.
In This is What I Know About Art arts writer, curator, and activist Kimberly Drew reminds us that the art world has space not just for the elite, but for everyone. co-editor of Black Futures Kimberly Drew shows us that art and protest are inextricably linked. Drawing on her personal experience through art toward activism, she challenges us to create space for the change that we want to see in the world.
The start of a bold and immersive West African-inspired, feminist fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther. In this NYT bestselling book, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice.
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in Otera, a deeply patriarchal ancient kingdom, where a woman’s worth is tied to her purity, and she must bleed to prove it. But when Deka bleeds gold – the colour of impurity, of a demon – she faces a consequence worse than death. She is saved by a mysterious woman who tells Deka of her true nature: she is an Alaki, a near-immortal with exceptional gifts. The stranger offers her a choice: fight for the Emperor, with others just like her, or be destroyed…
In her part memoir, part travelogue , Shubnum Khan takes readers around the world through a series of introspective anecdotal essays, reflecting on what it means to be a woman, particularly a single Muslim woman in South Africa, trying to find herself in a modern world. This is a book about holding onto hope and a reminder that once you step off the edge, anything can happen.
There adventure-filled vignettes are as entertaining as the are hilarious ~ Zukiswa Wanner
How I Lost My Mother is a deeply felt account of the relationship between a mother and son, and an exploration of what care for the dying means in contemporary society. The book is emotionally complex, but above all, heartfelt and honest. It speaks boldly of challenges faced by all of us, challenges which are often not spoken about and hidden, but which deserve urgent attention. All parents of adult children, and all adults who have parents alive, or have lost their parents, will find much in this book to make them laugh, cry, think and feel.
It is precisely because the writing of this book is so deeply personal that it will resonate universally. This is a story of one man but so too is it the story of us all. It is brave, truthful and full of heart. ~ Rahla Xenopoulos, author of A Memoir of Love and Madness, Bubbles, Tribe and The Season of Glass
With humour and tenderness Leslie Swartz writes about his late mother, Elsie, telling her life story and describing her with as much loving objectivity as one can have towards a parent. His intimate narrative shows how love is all about ‘losing’ a loved one in multiple ways over and over again. In this compelling memoir he also demonstrates how the important work of caring is too often invisible and goes unrecognised. ~ Colleen Higgs, author of my mother, my madness
An audio recording of the online book launch of Rogues’ Gallery: An Irreverent History of Corruption in South Africa, from the VOC to the ANC. Andrew Feinstein in conversation with the authors Matthew Blackman and Nick Dall.
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Renée Watson comes a new YA; a love story about not only a romantic relationship but how a girl finds herself and falls in love with who she really is.
When Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani’s birthday, she finds herself falling in instant love with Tye Brown, the MC. He’s perfect, except… Tye is an activist and is spending the summer putting on events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, sharing more of themselves, some of those lies get harder to keep up. As Nala falls deeper into keeping up her lies and into love, she’ll learn all the ways love is hard, and how self-love is revolutionary.
In Love Is a Revolution, plus size girls are beautiful and get the attention of the hot guys, the popular girl clique is not shallow but has strong convictions and substance, and the ultimate love story is not only about romance but about how to show radical love to the people in your life, including to yourself.
