Writing, Culture and Crime Scenes at the Time of the Writer
The Dlamini King Brothers’ isicatamiya performance opened the proceedings.
“Writing and Culture” -a rather large subject for discussion – was pinned down at the 2009 Time of the Writer for interrogation by facilitator Kolo Omotoso (Nigeria) whose opening gambit concerned the “culture of de-meaning/demeaning” that is allowed to flourish in parts of the continent.
Moses Isegawa, speaking of Ugandan civil war iniquities, and Mtutuzeli Matshoba, who detailed recollections of the Apartheid era, made interesting counterpoints in their respective indictments of oppression. Where Mtutuzeli embroidered anecdotes of the pain and humiliation of “influx control” endured in pre-democracy Soweto, Moses launched a salvo of sardonic audacity on the dichotomies of pre- and post-peace negotiations in his native Uganda.
Earlier in the week, Noma award winner Zachariah Rapola had been accused of belaboring the events of June 1976 by a young audience member – and Matshoba took the opportunity to defend him and reiterate the need to revisit and humanize the statistics of stories, whether it be the continued effort to see women as “not the appendages of men, but as people” or to witness, retrospectively, the indignities of history suffered by parents and grandparents to their children.
Moses spoke similarly of the gaps in history where the young, middle class generation of the now prospering southern parts of Uganda hardly believes their forbear’s persecution was “all that bad”. Both saw their work as cautions for future re-enactments of histories sorrowing story.
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For the evening’s second session, trio of crime cohorts Mike Nicol, Margie Orford and Deon Meyer – seen earlier at the launch of their joint effort, Bad Company – took to the stage under the rubric “Crime Scenes: Writing Crime Fiction in South Africa”. Facilitator
Margie, with more of her wonderful, ribbing cajolery, laid Mike and Deon’s writing processes bare on the forensic table.
The discussion see-sawed back and forth between the grim foundations of the genre and the amusing banter of old friends. Whilst Margie proclaimed in her opening statement that “crime is a symptom of a disordered society – crime writers are the diagnosticians”, both Mike and Deon cited social commentary as “by-products” of suspenseful, gripping stories, and said that sermonizing was to be avoided at all costs when crafting entertaining narratives. Both emphasized the crucial roles of conflict, restoration and red-herrings (or “red hedgehogs” as Mike put it) in good crime-fiction – with a little love interest smoldering on the side never harming anybody.
