Blood, sweat and victory

Troy Blacklaws

Karoo Boy, by Troy Blacklaws
Published by Double Storey, 2004
208 pages, Softcover
ISBN: 1919930256
Was R130.95   Now R98.21

Blood orange, by Troy Blacklaws
Published by Double Storey, 2005
ISBN: 1919930965
Pages: 224
Format: Softcover
Price: R130.95  Now R98.21 (from kalahari.net)

A year ago we interviewed you about your debut novel, Karoo Boy. On 27 August it was awarded second place in the Sunday Times Literary Awards fiction category. The criteria were that the work "should be distinguished by a creative rendering of the world in which the story unfolds, displaying a balanced and engaging integration of plot, characterisation, dialogue, setting and style to result in a new, memorable and enduring work considered to be a significant contribution to contemporary fiction".

How does it feel to have made a "significant contribution to contemporary fiction"?

All I'm aware of is having told a yarn, cruel yet colourful, that evokes the rhythms, moods and visceral surface of the land I love. It is my long poem of love and loss.

What about Karoo Boy makes it "new, memorable and enduring"?

The filmic, photographic feel to it may be innovative. The death of Douglas's brother on the beach is something you will never forget. It is partly due to the macho cult that pervades the apartheid South Africa of the novel: where boys have to catch cricket balls barehanded, where boys may not sketch on the beach instead of playing touch rugby or cricket with the guys, where boys have to endure canings without crying, and where boys have to prove their manhood again and again. Another thing that may stay in the mind is the then taboo friendship between an old black man and a young white boy. This was my bid to subvert the myth of apartheid (which I was taught at school), that we white South Africans had nothing to learn from black culture. The things Moses teaches Douglas about myth, the journey from boyhood to manhood, and dealing with loss, are magical. Moses is a kind of Gandalf figure. Wise yet vulnerable. Moses is my tribute to my imagined Mandela: for his way of riding out his years of exile on the island with stoic dignity, a love of dreaming, and a boyish, mischievous humour. Time will tell if the story endures. I hope to see Karoo Boy read in schools, as it tells of a panoramic range of South African experience, from the mundane to the mythic.

Does this success make you feel differently about your role as a South African writer?

I'm not aware of a role in South Africa, unless it is to jolt the memory of those who experienced the heyday of apartheid, or to conjure up for the young, images of a bygone time. Beyond South Africa I may have a role to play. As so much South African fiction is bleak and dark, I hope that overseas readers will find in my books descriptions not only of violence but also of the heady colours, jiving music, and cocky hope of South Africa. I hope the whimsical pennywhistle motifs will float higher than the blues rhythms, and echo on in the mind long after the books have gone out of print, or ended up in the boxes of warping, dusty, unwanted books you see outside bookshops in Germany.

What do you think the importance is of awards like the Sunday Times Literary Awards?

Such rituals put writing in the limelight. Writing a book is a lonely journey, and the fanfare of a prize draws the writer out of the shadows. They put a human face on the crabby, dodgy characters who devote years to scratching hieroglyphic notes in Moleskin notebooks, who endlessly sip coffee, hoping the jittery high will free the mind to invent, who forever read books with a plundering eye. Some good books are never published, and good published books often surface fleetingly. The Sunday Times puts good books such as The Good Doctor* (last year's runner-up) on the South African map. At the end of the day though, it is a human call. There is no hard and fast formula for figuring out which is the ultimate novel, no matter how notched your yardsticks. Two good unshortlisted novels are The Rock Alphabet and The Exploded View. Make a Skyf, Man and Shirley, Goodness and Mercy are mesmerising memoirs. I think it is a magic thing that the Sunday Times chooses to put money into this writing gig. It creates a focus on the virile panoply of writing being published in South Africa (and on a story set in Cornwall, which might otherwise have escaped the South African eye).

Previously you said you dream of seeing your novel's spine sandwiched between Behr and Brink in the South African books section. Are you still a dreamer?

I'm dreaming of Blood Orange selling like hotcakes in South Africa, as my cut of the profits will go to The Homestead, a shelter for street boys in Cape Town. I dream of finding a German publisher for Karoo Boy. I'm dreaming of Blood Orange being published as widely as Karoo Boy, which has just come out in the UK and US. I'm dreaming of my books being put on as plays at the Grahamstown Arts Festival. I'm dreaming of seeing the film that Sunu Gonera is to make of Karoo Boy. I'm dreaming of living in South Africa again, one day, out Hermanus way.

Since we last spoke, Blood Orange has been published by Double Storey. Has it been worth the wait?

It has been a long, lonely road. I began writing Blood Orange 14 years ago. During that time I was forever fine-tuning and fiddling, wondering if the cursed story would ever end up bound. The long wait taught me to be dogged (even if all the legendary publishers in the world tell you your novel is dodgy), to bide my time and to focus on the good things I had in life (my wife, my son and daughter, my job as a teacher).

The Sunday Independent reviewer said Blood Orange is "[p]oignant, compelling and packed with anecdotes, … (providing) an entertaining journey into a sliver of South Africa's past."*
But Blood Orange is more than just a novel ... Tell us about your very special project with The Homestead.

For a long time the hard fate of the stray, twilight boys has pervaded my dreaming of Africa, for however tricky my schooldays were at Paarl Boys' High (where I was baited as a rooinek and a kaffirboetie) my boyhood hurdles do not measure against the brutal reality of survival by hustling and begging on the streets. The death of K Sello Duiker this year further haunted me.

I found the shelter on the web: http://www.homestead.org.za.

I had been searching for a street shelter that is established and so has streetcred among the street boys, yet lacks major international funding, so that the money from my book might have a tangible impact.

I visited the Yizani Drop In Centre (150 Strand Street) and the Homestead Intake Shelter in old District 6 (under a flyover). The drop-in provides free food, a chance to shower, a change of clothes, and fruitful pursuits. This is a no-glue, no-knives zone, where boys take a first step off the street and can chill out. I saw two computers for the boys to learn a few keyboard skills (through games). There is no bid to barter their soul for bread. The boys are free to come and go. Across the road is a makeshift football pitch in an old quarry. It may take boys months to shift from Yizani to the Intake Shelter. Some never do. One street child was shot outside a night-club in Cape Town not long ago for a crime he did not commit.

Shane Egypt, who has spent years working with street boys, ferried me in a van to District 6, where I saw the Intake Shelter, on the edge of the open scar that was once a vibrant, jiving community. The deal here is that they get a bunk bed but have to go to school for three hours in the morning. In the afternoons they may play creative games or hang out at the shelter, but they are free to wander out onto the streets again. The shelter is bleak and minimal, but is an escape from the hazards of the streets. During this time a concerted bid is made to return the boy home to his relatives. If he is unwanted at his home, or home no longer exists, yet he desires a place to call home, he may then be given a place in The Homestead's Children's Home in Khayelitsha. Here the quest to find relatives goes on, and the focus is on schooling and becoming part of a community again.

I highjacked the stage at the Sunday Times shindig. It was a spur of the moment thing. I felt it would be sad to fly all the way out to South Africa and let the chance to put in a pitch for The Homestead go by. Blood Orange is doing well, by South African benchmarks. I get the impression it is gathering a readership by word of mouth.

What do your kids, Finn and Mia, think of your success?

So far the publishing of the two novels has been a low-key thing. Finn (8), is not too fazed. In a sense the books are for him, as he begged me time and again to tell him stories of Africa in this far, foreign place. He travelled with me to South Africa for the launch of Blood Orange at Wordfest, at the Grahamstown Festival. He upstaged me by playing Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" on the guitar in a smoky, crowded jazz bar called High Street Jazz. He had the place singing along. I realised then that a writer will never be as cool as a musician. My daughter, Mia, is fortunately still young enough (3) to be in awe of me.

Was there anything you made a point of doing when you were in Cape Town?

The moment I landed I took a taxi to The Homestead. I went out to the Kalk Bay harbour, where Karoo Boy ends. There was a high, hell-bent sea coming over the wall. I made a point of seeing the rugby in the rowdy Quay Four, on the waterfront. You never see rugby in Germany, so it was the first time I saw the plucky, agile Januarie weave his magic. I went out to the old harbour in Hermanus to dream of a story I want to write, which plays out in Cape Town and Hermanus. I visited The Book Cottage (10 Harbour Road, Hermanus) and picked up a copy of Jonny Steinberg's The Number. I went to Fisherhaven to taste my father's braai and my mother's Thai.

And finally, what are you reading this time around?

I have just read Ivan Vladislavic's The Exploded View. I am halfway though Jonny Steinberg's The Number. After that, I'll read Rosamund Haden's The Tin Church.

Remember, Troy will be donating his portion of profits made on the sale of Blood Orange to The Homestead. So buy your copy now!

Win! Win! Win! You could win a copy of last year's runner-up novel, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut, by answering this simple questions: What charity is Troy Blacklaws supporting? and mailing your answer to sharon@litnet.co.za

* The Sunday Independent review



LitNet: 27 September 2005

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