Girls with Guts: Writing a South African Thriller—Angela Makholwa in Conversation

Abstract

IN A RECENT ARTICLE ON THE CRIME WRITER WESSEL EBERSOHN, Geoff Davis writes that detective fiction rarely been considered a major genre in South African literature, with regard neither to its critical reception nor to its place in the nation's literary history.1 However, crime fiction has always existed at the edges of literary production in South Africa, waiting to be read, enjoyed, and 'investigated'; from the early stories of Arthur Maimane in Drum Magazine in the 1950s to crime writers 'proper' during the years, Ebersohn and James McClure; from South Africa's best-selling 'export', the Afrikaans-writing Deon Meyer, to countless texts that borrow elements from the genre.2 Indeed, when informally enquiring about contemporary crime novels in South Africa in 2003, the short-story writer and novelist Ivan Vladislavic replied: Come to think of it, most South African literature is about crime.3There is no doubt that crime fiction has been burgeoning in the 'new' South Africa, but particularly so in recent years. The reasons given are various, but all are equally compelling. In a 2006 radio interview, Deon Meyer reasoned thatit would have been totally impossible to write a book about policemen or former policemen in the old South Africa under the regime. What Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk did for me personally was they freed up police detective heroes and private eyes so that one can write about them. I don't think it is possible to have a protagonist in a police state as a hero.4Others elsewhere have argued in a similar vein, considering crime novels a particularly democratic genre, produced on any large scale only in democracies; dramatizing, under the bright cloak of entertainment, many of the precious rights and privileges that have set the dwellers in constitutional lands apart from the less fortunate.5 But there are also other viewpoints coming from contemporary South Africa. Barbara Erasmus, for example, a journalist and co-founder of the Cape-based Beat blog, an exciting new online forum for South African crime-fiction aficionados, notes that Crime has overtaken colour as a headline-grabber in South African newspapers - and the same trend can be detected in local literature.6 She also expresses a certain tiredness of apartheid and transformation literature, which explains her own interest in the genre.Whatever reasons individual readers or writers might put forward, the fact is that crime fiction in all its multi -dimensionality has brought many new South African voices to the fore, one of whom is Angela Makholwa. A young professional with her own PR agency in Johannesburg, Makholwa published her first novel, Red Ink, in 2007 and is currently working on her third. Red Ink is a racy thriller featuring the Jo 'burg PR consultant Lucy Khambule, who receives an unusual request from a convicted serial killer in C-Max prison - to write his story. When she agrees, sinister events begin to unfold which draw her deeper and deeper into the murky waters of crime and begin to threaten her world of professional and private successes. The novel has been hailed as a page-turning, gripping thriller and was praised for its distinct urban dialogue; it has also made its mark on the literary map as the first crime novel by a black South African woman.7In January 2008, Angela Makholwa attended the 9th Jahnheinz Jahn Symposium, Beyond Murder by Magic: Investigating African Fiction, at Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, which had brought together writers and critics from all over the world to discuss crime fiction from a dozen African countries written in nine different languages. Between panels, readings, and guided tour, she kindly agreed to talk to me about her novel Red Ink, her experience of writing it, and about the South African crime-fiction community.Christine Matzke: Thanks for coming to Mainz, Angela. I would like to know what got you interested in crime fiction, and what made you write this particular story. …