I was tremendously excited to hear that Soutie Press would be publishing a collection of SA nonfiction essays and articles. I love the genre, and what arrived on my doorstep was a big fat volume of 33 long-form, creative nonfiction pieces; I smacked my lips before diving in.
The term “creative nonfiction” was born in the 1960s, said co-editor Sean Christie at the Johannesburg launch of the book, as a response to traditional “beige journalism”, where facts are simply reported, such as that published in many newspapers and some magazines.
Famous practitioners of creative nonfiction were US writers Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, among many others. As Anton Harber explained at the launch, this kind of writing was multilayered and complex, an example of “slow journalism”. Such writing sometimes uses the devices of fiction writing, dialogue, for instance, or character development, scene-setting and plotting. Truth, as subjective as that is, is still at the heart of creative nonfiction. Nothing is made up, but it is told in an engaging and sometimes personal way. The writers can also form part of the stories. These kind of articles and essays are usually long, telling the stories through many pages.
Edited by Christie and Hedley Twidle, both acclaimed SA practitioners of the form, The Interpreters: South Africa’s New Nonfiction was put together, as Christie explained, by approaching a number of writers and asking what they had published, and what their favourites were. He pointed out that it is not “the” collection, and other editors may have chosen differently.
But let’s turn to the stories themselves. Music is at the heart of two excellent pieces, In the Jungle by Rian Malan and Roger Young’s Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables.
Malan’s story begins in 1939 when a man named Solomon Linda stood in front of a microphone in a recording studio: “He just opened his mouth and out it came, a haunting skein of fifteen notes.” That melody would become the famous song, In the Jungle, first known as The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh), migrating to the US, covered by such singers as Pete Seeger, a band called The Tokens and sung by Miriam Makeba, among many others. Linda saw very little of the wealth that the song provided for those who had recorded, changed and covered it. This is a story of a song, and then it becomes very personal as Malan seeks to find a way for Linda’s descendants to claim a share of that largesse.
Meanwhile, Young’s article takes an in-depth look at a Durban-based band called Fruits & Veggies, fronted by Purity Mkhize. At the time of writing the band had produced only one album, Nada, and had mostly played in Durban for six years. Young’s story is a deep dive into the experiences of the members of the band, including their publicist, Loopy, and interviews with Mkhize. It’s an astonishing tale, whether you know this band’s music.
Another panellist at the Johannesburg launch was Zanele Mji, whose story, These Graves Were Once Our Title Deeds, is a real standout of the collection. She described how she got into a cab as a lifestyle and fashion journalist, began talking to the cab driver, and emerged with a desire to dig deeper into the story he had touched on. This is an exploration of crumbling graves in the suburbs of Fourways, Johannesburg.
As she tells it, the graves belong to the people who lived and worked on the hundreds of farms that once made up this area. Developers have relocated some graves to local cemeteries, but the story is not that simple. It is a story of forced removals, and a dispute over the graves with the upmarket Dainfern Estate. The story is complicated, but compellingly told, and an important reclamation of history.
Another slice of history is presented in the work of third panellist present at the launch, Harber’s Clash of the Booker Titans, a recollection from the time he was co-editor of the then Weekly Mail. It was the late 1980s, the newspaper’s Book Week was being organised, and Salman Rushdie had been invited. A fatwa had been issued against him for publishing The Satanic Verses and there were calls that he be uninvited. What followed included a war of words between JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, aligned with Cosaw (the Congress of SA Writers). Added to this excitement was the fact that the government was shutting the paper down for a month. It makes for a riveting look back at those turbulent times.
Bongani Kona’s moving story, The Descendants, has its roots in a personal history, that of his grandparents, and his grandfather’s abduction from a farm in 1979 at the height of the guerrilla warfare in then Rhodesia. Madondo’s mother suspected he had been executed. His grandmother was devastated, coping somehow with the loss.
There are many other notable stories in this collection. Kimon de Greef’s Underworld explores the world of the zama zamas in Welkom, highlighting a gruesome “industry” and the characters who run these operations.
Mark Gevisser’s Edenvale juxtaposes his wedding to his partner against the long-term relationship of two black men, Phil and Edgar, who had to hide their love that began during the apartheid era. It’s an eye-opening and fascinating account. Gay life in the Cape is also the focus of Michiel Heyns’ On Graciousness and Convenience: Cape Cottaging c1960-1980. Cottaging refers to the practice of gay men picking up others in public spaces and conveniences.
Unfathomable by Anna Hartford is a deeply moving account of her journey of infertility, IVF and a harrowing choice that has to be made once she is pregnant. Miriam Makeba’s life and death is artfully and cleverly explored in Yokuvala Umkhokha by Lindokuhle Nkosi. Investigation Pieces by Madeleine Fullard is an account of her work with the missing persons task team in the National Prosecuting Authority. This organisation traces the fate and whereabouts of those who disappeared in political circumstances, with the aim of recovering their remains.
The Interpreters, which gives the book its title, comprises interviews about the process of interpreting at the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It’s authored by Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele. Alexandra Dodd’s Spear and Loathing unpacks the story and controversy of the painting The Spear in which former president Jacob Zuma was depicted with his genitals on view.
The vulnerable lives of inner-city residents in Johannesburg’s crumbling centre are highlighted with tenderness in Dispossessed by Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon. And finally there is the concluding essay by Adrian Leftwich, I Gave the Names. He became involved with the African Resistance Movement (ARM). He was subsequently detained, collaborated with the police, naming names, and was forced into exile. He writes of this, as well as his life following the years since.
I finished this book wanting more, despite it being almost 500 pages. I could easily have carried on reading. My hope is that there will be more: we have so many more stories to tell that I’m not so silently wishing that there will be more volumes, providing more immersions into our histories and insights into the lives of others.
Correction: June 22 2025
This story has been corrected to reflect that Bongani Kona is the writer of ‘The Descendants’ and not Bongani Madonda.
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