Anthony Egan
THE SPILLING OF BLOOD by Thabo Shenge Luthuli (Gariep)
GODS OF OUR TIME by Mongane Wally Serote (Ravan)
These two novels have in common the experience of being soldiers in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) as a theme. Beyond that they are poles apart: one might be seen as primarily a political thriller, the other a meditation on the process of struggle.
Thabo Shenge Luthuli’s novel recounts the career of Alex Mthethwa, a high- ranking MK officer who develops an operation to promote the idea of a negotiated settlement. In the meantime he faces the threat of security branch attempts to capture or kill him, as well the damage caused by a high-placed mole in the exiled African National Congress.
Mongane Wally Serote’s story is far less a thriller than a collage of characters and incidents: people slip across the border for training, hide in safe houses within South Africa, go out on guerrilla operations, form relationships with each other. With them and among them are collaborators and agents of the apartheid state. Undercover work has its human as well as military-strategic costs, Serote is saying.
There is, compared to The Spilling of Blood, very little plot in Gods of Our Time; on the other hand, Serote’s characters are less stereotypical than Luthuli’s. Plotting is not a strong point of Serote’s novel, though individual scenes make up for it with their evocative power.