AUTHOR’S NOTES
Describe yourself in a sentence.
Impossible.
Describe your book in a sentence.
The inner and outer journeys of a young South African man with humour, drama and snot en trane along the way.
What was the originating idea for the book?
I know a 20-year-old man who fostered his baby nephew when the mother left and the father wanted to put him up for adoption. I wondered what kind of young man would do such a thing, and what the consequences of such a brave and naive act would be.
Name some writers who have inspired you, and tell us why.
Ursula le Guin, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood (especially her poetry), Tsitsi Dangarembga, Marion Milner, Marina Warner, Doris Lessing, Ellen Gilchrist, Rebecca West … as they are largely process writers who grapple with the body, image, feeling and conflict, and work very satisfyingly with the tension between the personal and the political, and between tragedy and comedy.
What is the purpose of fiction?
To help us recognise ourselves, to give us pleasure and to wake us up.