Homebru 2006 author: Melinda Ferguson

Melinda Ferguson is the author of Smacked, published by Struik (under the Oshun imprint).

1.   What does it mean to you to have your writing recognised and celebrated as "South African"?

   It’s fantastic. I feel very honoured to be included in the Homebru selection, as Smacked is my first book and I’m surrounded by some really fabulous writers. I think we as South Africans have something great to celebrate as we become more and more confident in our creative expressions.

2.  What was it that led you to write a book about this aspect of South Africa?

   Smacked is my personal account of my journey into the hell of heroin and crack addiction and my experience getting out of it. While in addiction I lived a very dark and pain-filled existence, a slave to substances that totally controlled me on every level. When I was granted the opportunity to recount this journey in my book I knew it would have cathartic potential and also be a vehicle for me to really understand why and how I went on such a hellbender. The book also deals with an underground/underbelly side of South African life that is the world of Hillbrow, pimps, dealers and addicts, and I felt my firsthand experience of this world would be something that people would be keen to read about.

3.   Is it possible for one's thinking, and therefore writing, as a South African to be free of political and historical influence?

   Well, my book was definitely written with all those influences. I don’t really think any writer, no matter whether you come from Nigeria, Croatia, England, or wherever, is ever free of these political or historical influences. And I think that’s great … that our lives are really a tapestry of all these different elements. As time goes by, obviously South African writers will be more exposed to the influences of life experienced in a democracy, and that will be, and is becoming, the wallpaper against which we write our stories.

4.   Is there a writing community in South Africa, or is writing in this country a solitary journey?

   As a writer I like to go on solitary journeys. Perhaps there is this strong writing community out there, but I am not really exposed to or that aware of it. I have had lots of support from the media and from the general public for my book, not so much from fellow writers. I recently attended a film script workshop and met up with writers from all over Africa and that was a great supportive experience. But then film is much more collaborative than, say, writing a novel or non-fiction book.

5.   What different (or similar) roles do fiction and non-fiction play in constructing a South African experience/literature in 2006 and beyond?

   They have equally important functions. Smacked is non-fiction, based on my true story. My next book, which is in the early planning stages, will be a novel, I think. Both will be expressing a South African experience.

6.   Do you think South African non-fiction has international appeal? If so, can the same be said for unashamedly South African fiction?

   I think both categories have huge international appeal.

7.   Who do you think is the most influential South African writer today? And who is your favourite local author?

   I guess JM Coetzee is probably our most influential writer and (besides myself … haha!!) my favourite local writer right now is Adam Levine, (AidsSafari) and K Sello Duiker, whose untimely death at the beginning of 2005 was a tragic loss to South African literature.

8.  If you could choose five works (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, performance poetry, etc) from South African literature that would be able to communicate "the South African experience", which five would you choose?

   Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams
   JM Coetzee’s Disgrace
   Gabeba Baderoon’s A 100 Silences
   Olive Schreiner’s A story of an African Farm
   Steve Biko’s I write what I like.

9.   What makes you a South African?

   I think my love for this land and its people and all the disparate, divergent forces that make us all what we are. So it’s really a feeling that makes me a South African rather than an action.

10.  What is your favourite South Africanism?

    “Ja” and “sharp”.

Moenie ons Homebru 2006-kompetisie misloop nie! Wen 'n lekker Suid-Afrikaanse boekpakkie! Klik hier om meer uit te vind.

LitNet: 10 May 2006

Click here to read answers of the Homebru 2006 fiction writers
Click here to read the answers of the Homebru 2006 non-fiction writers

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