A Special Profile on South Africa's Women Writers

by

Alex Smith

There exists today an unprecedented verve in the South African publishing scene; it is one of the many great spin-offs of the advent of democracy. The essential goodness of our nation is restored; there is renewed, and vigorous, if not entirely unanimous belief in our tremendous potential as Africa’s flagship nation. From that confidence within has come a surge of accomplishments in all spheres including literature. Women writers in particular have found voice and opportunity to emerge from the shadows of second-class citizenship with shocking, brilliant and enticing tales spanning ages and all aspects of the whole from pigs and fish to pilgrims, psychopaths and fortune.

Not only do we have Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer in our ranks, but in recent years, following on from pioneering South African writers like Oliver Schreiner, Miriam Tlali, Ingrid Jonker, Bessie Head, and Lauretta Ngcobo, has come a multitude of women writers, whose work has been internationally acclaimed, published, and acknowledged with awards.

Their successes have given publishers and other writers of South Africa more confidence, more courage and this had lead to even greater opportunities and so to still more success. The shelves of local bookstores are filled as never before with books written by South African women. In a suburban branch of the country’s leading book retailer, I made a rough count in the fiction and poetry sections and found fifty-seven South African women writers represented on the shelves.

We are a country made dynamic by our diversity and gradually this is being reflected in a publishing scene once dominated by white male academics. Perhaps it was the suburban nature of the bookshop, but those fifty-seven women writers in evidence, while sparkling and diverse indeed, were not fully representative of all of South Africa’s culture and language groups.

Although it is beyond the scope of this introduction to go into this with much depth, it is a matter affecting of course, not just the women writers, but all writers and importantly, all readers, in our country. Of our eleven official languages, only two languages were represented in the shop. English, the home language of 8.2% of the South African population, dominated fiction and non-fiction, and in a small corner on two low shelves were works of fiction written in Afrikaans, the home-language of 13.3% of the population. As it turned out this was the norm, and not limited only to that suburban branch of the country’s leading book retailer. Being an avid reader, as well as a student of five languages, I find there is no comparison between reading a book in my mother tongue and reading in a second or third language. Reading in my language is bliss, reading in other languages is wonderful too, a welcome challenge with fascinating depths, but not one I would contemplate after a long day at work and a couple of hours of commuting. I studied Afrikaans for twelve years, and Dalene Matthee’s books Fiela Se Kind and Kringe in die Bos were unforgettable set-works, but after school, and I’m sure to my detriment for there are many exceptional books in Afrikaans, I’ve never read another book in Afrikaans. I simply prefer reading in my home language. I cannot imagine growing up without ready access to a universe of books in my home language. When I lived in China teaching English at a university, I felt immense frustration as I browsed shelves of glorious looking books I couldn’t understand because they were in Mandarin. Other people were soaking up stories and knowledge, but I was left out and excluded.

English may be the language of international business and of the Internet, and so it is empowering to speak, read and write English well, however, taking a few European countries and China as examples, there are increasing numbers of people fluent in English as a second language in these countries, but the bookshops of France, Germany, Italy and China are nevertheless filled mostly with books in French, German, Italian and Chinese; it is a matter of national pride, even perhaps, a basic right for citizens to have ready access to books, fiction and non-fiction, in their national languages.

To satisfy my curiosity about the availability of books in languages other than English and Afrikaans, I telephoned seven other large branches of Exclusive Books in different parts of the country. Aside from a handful of what the bookstores termed ‘picture flats’ – those soft, word poor and picture rich books for children still learning to read – at South Africa’s leading book retailer, I found no works of fiction for sale in any of South Africa’s official languages other than English and Afrikaans. Also, although, there were Afrikaans novels translated into English, there were no novels translated from Xhosa, Zulu or any other South African language into English. Even the Soweto branch of Exclusive Books stocked fiction only in English and a smattering in Afrikaans. The bookseller I spoke to at Soweto Exclusive Books informed me that they were hoping to receive some books in Xhosa and Zulu before the end of the year. She said they were talking to publishers but that it was not so easy to get hold of literature published in languages other than English and Afrikaans. I checked with another of the country’s major book retailers, Wordsworth, and was informed of a similar story: they offered mostly English and a small selection of Afrikaans literature, and a few picture-flats in one or two other official languages. The situation was the same at CentralNewsAgency (CNA) and the online bookstore Kalahari.net. It seems our leading brands of booksellers are all exclusive, rather than inclusive. Considering Zulu and Xhosa are the home languages of 23.8% and 17.6% of the population respectively, my first reaction was to be appalled at the lack of availability, but my second reaction seemed more useful – what we have now is an opportunity, a splendid opportunity for readers, writers, translators, publishers and booksellers. Surely there is a literary fortune waiting to be uncovered, discovered, made, and enjoyed. We are at a time of increase and therefore it is the perfect moment to take advantage of the momentum and make changes; failure to act, to correct this fundamental fault may lead to entropy. I look forward to an inclusive time of double confidence within, double opportunity for South Africans, men and women, writing, translating, publishing, selling and reading in all languages, and so to a double fortune of literature for all.

Now to our present fortune, though, the women writing in this first decade of Africa’s new millennium. I have been charged with introducing not definitively, just broadly, our women writers, but who better than the writer to write about herself? Over the past week, therefore, I have had the privilege of engaging in a written dialogue with a cross-section of South Africa’s emerging brilliants, well-established, award-winning and tenacious-still-unappreciated women writers. To them, I posed six questions and in their own words, therefore, they now introduce themselves, their work, influences, views on and experiences as women writers of South Africa today. Included in brackets, is each writer’s most recently published work and the publisher.

What is the current state of fiction in South Africa and in particular the current state of fiction by women authors?

Gabeba Baderoon: South African writing generally, so I'd go beyond fiction to include poetry, non-fiction and drama, is enjoying a state of heightened interest, originality and productivity right now.  Women are writing some of the most fascinating, original and unsettling work right now, which is brilliant.  I shivered when I read Nadia Davids' At Her Feet.  I also had this delicious sense of dangerously good writing on reading Mary Watson's Moss.  Yvette Christianse's Unconfessed is the best thing that happened in SA fiction in years.
(A Hundred Silences, Kwela/Snailpress)
Sumayya Lee: One would have thought that post 1994 much of new writing would be dominated by stories of the pain inflicted by apartheid. On the contrary, the bulk of what has emerged is what I can only assess as a revolution against amnesia. Women writers in particular have dominated the literary space, recounting the inequities of the social environment, especially the tyranny of a male dominated society. Without singling out particular authors, the volume of work by female writers, specifically of Indian origin, outnumbers that by male writers by a ratio of 3:1. I don't consider that remarkable, the stories were always there. What has changed is the female mindset. The will to challenge male domination has replaced subservience.
(The Story of Maha, Kwela)

Angelina Sithebe: Exciting, more voices and depth in different genres.
(Holy Hill, Random House/Umuzi)

Pamela Jooste: Very healthy. There are a great many more publishers than there used to be and there is even a reputable literary agent which we never had before.  Woman are playing their part and doing good work but I don't really feel to the exclusion of the men.  I see women winning prizes and being well reviewed, what I am not particularly seeing is them becoming the darlings of the book clubs - where a large part of the market lies - there they have to compete against overseas fiction which still retains its allure.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi).

Praba Moodly: I believe we are coming into our own but there is still so much of preference given to international writers by booksellers. When a South African book is launched the bookstores will display the book prominently and then once the hula is over the book disappears from the bookshelves and when enquiries are made readers are told it is out of stock or has to be ordered. What is not visible will soon be forgotten and South African novels need more visibility. Readers are becoming experimental and reading more local work for it is so easily identifiable. Thankfully, libraries are seeing the value of  South African writing and purchasing more books.  I think  women authors is truly an untapped market and for those budding female writers I say  " persevere". There are lots of readers out there hungry for stories they can relate to.
(A Scent So Sweet, Kwela)

Azila Talit Reisenberger: If we in SA are serious about nurturing the cultural richness of our land, we must ensure that all citizens with inclination and talent to write are allowed to write in their own mother tongue. The collective ‘WE’ should endeavour to translate it to the benefit of all. If not, we are doomed to bring about cultural reductionism.
(Life in Translation, Modjaji)

Finuala Dowling: Flourishing, in the sense that new voices are emerging and there is a healthy diversity of genre -- detective fiction, light fiction (don't like the term "chicklit"), literary fiction.  More local fiction than ever before is being published, which means competition for media coverage.
(Flyleaf, Penguin)

Maxine Case: It’s a wonderful time to be writing. I am also very impressed with the stories that are coming out of South Africa at the moment. I tend to prefer more literary books with a historical slant, but that is my personal preference. I have just read and enjoyed ‘Unconfessed’ by Yvette Christiansë and ‘No Man’s Land’ by Carel van der Merwe.”
(All We Have Left Unsaid, Kwela)

Margie Orford: I write in such a 'masculine' genre - so I am not sure about how I fit with women authors. Feminist, yes. But I get fatigued with endless stories about childbirth and the domestic. I think Celean Jacobson's article about women writers, which appeared in the Sunday Times a couple of years ago was very apt. There was a long hard feminist fight to get women into the public domain and we need to take it up. That said, I consider myself a writer first, then a woman and I am never quite sure how those to interact. I am a feminist and I do take on things that are generally considered male - guns, cops, gangs and crime. But then I do write plenty of sex scenes - and those are definitely imbued with a female erotic - the erotic being something sorely lacking in much southern African writing.
(Blood Rose, Oshun).

Ceridwen Dovey: There was a feature article published in The New York Times on Dec. 3, 2006, called "Post-Apartheid Fiction". I thought it was an interesting analysis and somewhat accurate in describing post-apartheid literature as "fragmented" and seeing evidence of a kind of turning inward after the political, activist literature of apartheid with post-apartheid writers feeling justified only in dealing with their "own ethnic experiences." And the article spotlighted the main issue in current South African fiction, which is the search for the "great black South African novelist." In terms of race, South African fiction probably has a way to go – but I think with the burgeoning new black middle class, the creative writing courses at South African universities will soon have many more black applicants (currently there are hardly any - which makes sense given that pursuing any kind of arts degree as opposed to a vocational degree is still seen as somewhat of a luxury). In terms of gender, I think that female South African authors are extremely well-represented and are dominating the current fiction scene in South Africa. Just look at all the recent female authors who have been published to local (and international) acclaim: Rayda Jacobs, Mary Watson, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Lauren Beukes, Diane Awerbuck, Conseulo Roland, Susan Mann, Patricia Schonstein Pinnock. Then there are all the women SA authors who have been publishing to acclaim for a while now:  Rachelle Greeff, Gcina Mhlope, Antjie Krog, Marguerite Poland, Nadine Gordimer (of course!), Marita van der Vyver. And then there are all the South African writers living overseas, some of whom I've already mentioned above: Sarah Penny, Sheila Kohler, Barbara Trapido, Anne Landsman (who has a new novel, The Rowing Lesson just released in the  U.S.), Elleke Boehmer. I think courses like the one I did, the Creative Writing MA at UCT, are giving women a forum within which to write and the structures to back them up, and most of the top South African publishers are women – Annari van der Merwe at Umuzi, Alison Lowry at Penguin, Michelle Matthews who was at Oshun until recently – which bodes extremely well for female authors.
(Blood Kin, Penguin)

Gail Dendy: I feel we have not consolidated our identity as 'South Africans' -- certainly English-speaking white South Africans (my 'category'), and as such the fiction is generally somewhat rootless.  In contrast, I think Afrikaners have a far clearer identity and this impacts very positively on their work. Generally, though, I tend not to categorise fiction into 'women's and men's'. Regarding the 'current state of fiction in SA', I'm concerned that it is being cornered (hi-jacked?) by university academics (usually teaching English, or Creative Writing courses) and by the ever-growing number of students of those university courses. (I work in the corporate legal world and am therefore something of an anomaly.) The result appears to be a bland sameness of the approach to writing or, alternatively, a mimicry of the approach taken by each particular university. I wonder if 'writing' is not slowly being removed from the central sphere of society? If so, it would be tantamount to squeezing the blood out our collective heart.
(The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Snailpress)

Elizabeth Pienaar: Lots of rough talent that would ultimately be better served if it waited a little to be honed. But vibrant. It's exciting.
(Open, is Elizabeth’s latest short story to be published in the anthology Erotica in 2008 by Oshun)

Joanne Hichens: It seems this a bit of a Golden Age for fiction, in that really, anything goes. Publishers seem to be sweating to get their paws on novels that are original, ground-breaking, edgy, and the public seem to want to read a wide variety of different sorts of these stories, some popular, some literary, including fiction and non-fiction. Writers are giving voice to the diverse stories out there and there is definitely space for varying perspectives. As writers we no longer seem restricted by need to bring down Apartheid, though I reckon politics will always sneak in somewhere.  
(Out To Score, co-authored with Mike Nicol, Random House/Umuzi)

Rose Richards: This is a time of great change.  SA writers are learning a new identity or identities.  It is exciting, but I worry that we might not know how to be ourselves yet.  I get the impression SA writers feel they need to write a particular way to be South African.  Women are coming into their own as writers in SA. (Luvandvar is one of Rose’s recent stories published in Kunapipi an Australian journal of post-colonial writing)

Emma Van der Vliet: There is an openness to talking (and writing) about a very wide range of issues now. It's OK to talk about frivolities, about personal issues and most importantly it's OK to laugh. Which is a huge relief. I think this is particularly important in women's writing because, if I may generalise in a deplorably sexist manner, women are often keener to share stories from the "macro" world as well as the more intimate world, which were understandably eclipsed in the apartheid past by more specifically political stories. It's miraculous that we can now explore as far afield or as close to home as we want to, and people such as Penguin SA are willing to publish this because they know other people, not exclusively women, are interested in hearing these stories.
(Past Imperfect, Penguin)

Jann Turner: We're in an interesting phase where a lot of new stories are being told and a great many new voices are speaking out, but we lack good editors. Nevertheless it's an exciting time because there is an appetite for more work by all South African writers and particularly new ones.
(Southern Cross, Orion UK)

L.M.Brickwood: Most S.A. publishers told me in no uncertain terms that there is no market here for more complex teenage fiction (my genre). Too much like Harry Potter, too big a project, too international in flavour. The book should be set in South Africa (not in prehistory), be very short (up to 100 pages) and very simple. It seems too risky to develop a new author and a lot of publishers don’t accept teenage fiction at all. In contrast, teachers, librarians and readers across the colour, education and age spectrum tell me that the fiction in ‘Children of the Moon’ is exactly what they want. On an international scale, South African writers barely register.
(Children of the Moon, Zulu Planet Publishing)

Lauren Beukes: I read books that interest me and I find pigeonholing irritating -  which means that I don’t choose my reading material based on the author’s gender or country of origin. There are certainly more exciting and energetic and experimental books coming through than ever before as publishers are more willing to take a risk on stuff that doesn’t fit the formula.
(Branded, to be published in 2008 by Jacana)

Dawn Garish: It felt as though the lid came off in 1994 with the first democratic elections in this country. South Africans no longer regard most SA writing as inferior to overseas publications.
The slogan 'Proudly South African' reflects a real change in attitude. The quality of writing ranges, but there is much that I have read that is impressive.
(Once, Two Islands, Kwela)

Catriona Ross: For women novelists, this is perhaps our most exciting, liberated time in history. Censorship is dead, diversity is embraced, and apartheid has faded enough for authors to move beyond their role of guardian of justice and simply write what they love. The result is a flowering of personal stories, infinitely varied and fascinating. We’re seeing smaller stories, funny stories, sad and strange and true stories – the whole spectrum of human experience.
(The Love Book, Oshun)

What is the most marked characteristic of your writing?

Patricia Schonstein: Broadly speaking, I think it is my use of colour, fabric, embroidery, food and magic to expose the horrors of war, genocide, religious intolerance, our destruction of the earth and the nature of good and evil. But my writing is also marked by hope and triumph and by great sympathy for the human condition. A Time of Angels is the novel, which encompasses most of these elements.
(A Quilt of Dreams,)

Angelina Sithebe: Magic realism.
(Holy Hill, Random House/Umuzi)

Fransi Phillips: Imagination, constant change.
(Die Donker God, Random House/ Umuzi)

Praba Moodly: Writing about the Indian community from the  time of "indentured labour", the trials and tribulations and the inner strength to triumph … The personal, business and academic achievements of a community. November 16, 1860 saw the first load of indentures arrive from India to work on the sugar cane plantation and we  proudly we celebrate 147 years in this now democratic country we call home. (A Scent So Sweet, Kwela)

Azila Talit Reisenberger: I am an ‘immigrant’ to SA and so I write some works in English and some in Hebrew. I find that most of my writings deal with womanhood - life experiences with its glory and its pitfalls. I have had to make some choices: shall I continue to write Hebrew even if the "audience" is small or shall I "move" to the universal English? I decided to write in  both, not to abandon the Hebrew. I believe that it enriches the SA cultural tapestry. Obviously I am working on translating it, but writing something in one's own mother tongue allows for sensitivity and openness that can not be achieved through mediation - of a ‘foreign language’.”
(Life in Translation, Modjaji)

Finuala Dowling: Its tragi-comic voice
(Flyleaf, Penguin SA)

Sumayya Lee: A frank, honest take on reality. I write from the heart. In The Story of Maha I have simply recorded a facet of society that was and still is being swept under the carpet - the total subjugation of the female in Indo-African society. My writing is a negation of subservience. If it ruffles a few feathers it tells us more about those who object to it than it does about my own ramblings.”
(The Story of Maha, Kwela) 

Maxine Case: I like to think that it is my spare style of writing.
(All We Have Left Unsaid, Kwela)

Margie Orford: My writing is quite distilled. I write crime fiction - but my focus is on violence and the traces it leaves on people and places. I try to write with great pace- so that I catch the reader and make them read through to the end, preferably in one go. It is plot and character driven, rather than issue driven. I like a good story well told. That is what I aim for.
(Blood Rose, Oshun.)

Tobea Brink: I hope that it is attention to small things (both internal and external) that usually go by unnoticed.
(Die Hemelklip, Kwela)

Gail Dendy: My writing has a very strong, individualistic voice. It is extremely distinctive, particularly in the use of rhythm whereby I created my own 'singing line'. I would say, too, that my work has a 'magical realism' in that I draw heavily on fantasy, myth, world literature (including the bible), fables and fairytales. I also draw on works of world literature (read in English translation). As such, several of my poems are populated with characters from these sources, including snippets of 'conversation'.  I think of my poems as three-dimension, almost architectural, entities.” (The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Sailpress)

Elizabeth Pienaar: It grapples with the insanity all around us in daily life.
(Open, is Elizabeth’s latest short story to be published in the anthology Erotica in 2008 by Oshun)

Anne Landsman: I often deal with characters in moments of extremis. In “The Devil’s Chimney,” Connie, the narrator, tells the story as she teeters on the brink of alcoholic collapse. In “The Rowing Lesson,” the narrative unfolds at the death-bed of the comatose Harry Klein as his daughter, Betsy, tells him of the man he once was. There’s a lyric desperation to the prose, a heightened use of language to explore the characters’ inner states.
(The Devil’s Chimney, Penguin)

Joanne Hichens: I am an ‘emerging’ crime writer, if that can be called a characteristic! I enjoy writing direct, hard-boiled prose, focusing on crime writing, which would include scenes of sex and violence, as a comment on the real and diverse problems in our society.
(Out To Score, co-author with Mike Nicol, Random House/Umuzi)

Rose Richards: People describe my work as creepy or violent, but I don’t see it.  I prefer to see my work as dreamlike.  Stories have their own internal logic, but this is not always what you would expect in the (waking) world.  I also use events to represent emotion or capture an emotional climate, so this might account for the violence that sometimes (apparently) is there.
(Luvandvar is one of Rose’s recent stories published in Kunapipi an Australian journal of post-colonial writing)

Emma Van der Vliet: Finding the humour and humanity in difficult moments.
(Past Imperfect, Penguin)

Lauren Beukes: Playfulness and a sense of irreverence. I don’t want to be limited by a particular genre or style. It comes from ten years working as a freelance journalist, where you have to be flexible, to be able to write a hard-hitting and hardcore investigative science feature on circumcision as an AIDS intervention and then switch to a light confection of a story on upmarket swingers for one of the glossies. Journalism was a tremendous training ground for developing adaptability and an accessible tone as well as exposing me to people and experiences I never would have encountered in my normal life.
(Branded, to be published in 2008 by Jacana)

Pamela Jooste: My books are about ordinary people living small lives against the huge background of political change in South Africa.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi)

Gabeba Baderoon: I'd say a combination of the intimate and the historical.
(A Hundred Silences, Kwela/Snailpress)

Which South African authors do you most identify with?

Praba Moodly: I don't identify with any particular writer for I believe each writer has his/her own unique style and stories to share with the world and it is vital to keep  one's identity in the  difficult, demanding world of writing. However, I do think the one aspect South African writers identify with is the need to share and experience much of our diverse culture and in doing so broaden our way of thinking, relating to similarities  and grow more accepting of differences.
(A Scent So Sweet, Kwela)

Finuala Dowling: Poets Antjie Krog, Mzi Mahola, Ingrid de Kok, Gus Ferguson.
(Flyleaf, Penguin SA)

Margie Orford: Coetzee's early work – ‘Dusklands’, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ and then ‘Boy’. I loved that. Some of Olive Schreiner's work. I like Fred Khumalo's ‘Touch my Blood’. I like Deon Meyer too. Tsitsi Dangramembga is Zimbabwean but I loved ‘Nervous Conditions’. Yvonne Vera too. I also think Anthony Altbeker's work on crime is very good. And Max Du Preez.
(Blood Rose, Oshun).

Anne Landsman: In the opening pages of J.M. Coetzee’s “Boyhood,” I learned that he spent a significant portion of his childhood in Worcester, the small Boland town where I was born and raised too. I identified with the setting and the main character so strongly that I almost started reading the book all over again once I was finished with it. I’ve been deeply influenced by many of his books including “In the Heart of the Country,” “The Life and Times of Michael K.,” and “Disgrace.” Carola Luther, a poet who left South Africa when I did and moved to the U.K. writes a poem of longing titled “Compass” with which I strongly identify. It describes the migration of swallows, nesting in a barn west of Leeds, and then finally giving in “to that other compass of longing: / the south, the south, the south.”
(The Devil’s Chimney, Penguin)

Sumayya Lee: I am not sure whether one can say that one identifies with another writer. Rather, I will say that I identify with the spirit in which certain writers present what they view as societal challenges. In this regard, I identify with the spirit that is exemplified in the work of Aziz Hassim and Rayda Jacobs.
(The Story of Maha, Kwela)

Angelina Sithebe: Credo Mutwa.
(Holy Hill, Random House/Umuzi)

Pamela Jooste: None.  Everyone has a different style and addresses different issues and that's how it should be.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi)

Maxine Case: I identify most with South African writers who are not the product of a university creative writing programme.
(All We Have Left Unsaid, Kwela)

Tobea Brink: Antjie Krog, by a million miles. I like the way she keeps on digging deeper and ever more honestly into her own understanding of (her) life.
(Die Hemelklip, Kwela )

Gabeba Baderoon: I admire several intensely, like Rustum Kozain, Mary Watson and Charl-Pierre Naude, but I don't identify with them.
(A Hundred Silences, Kwela/Snailpress)

Fransi Phillips: There's this reasonably obscure poet from the eighties:  Johan van Wyk. I like Ingrid Winterbach as well, but I don't really identify with her.
(Die Donker God, Random House/Umuzi)

Ceridwen Dovey: If you'd asked me which SA authors I admire most, I could respond easily: J.M . Coetzee, Marguerite Poland, Damon Galgut, Ivan Vladislavic, Njabulo Ndebele, Barbara Trapido, Sheila Kohler. But who I identify most with is a more difficult question, and I'm not sure I identify with any of them. This is probably because I'm not sure if I'm even 'allowed' to call myself a South African author and because most of the authors I've mentioned are from a different generation of South African authors who either have impeccable anti-apartheid credentials, or who went into exile overseas at a time when they were leaving South Africa for clear-cut moral reasons (Coetzee's move to Australia is more complicated). I probably identify more with South African writers living overseas like you (Alex), or Sarah Penny (who lives in the UK), or Anne Landsman (who is South African but has lived in New York for many years), or Sheila Kohler (who I think lives in America) or Barbara Trapido (who lives in the UK) - although again this gets complicated because Landsman, Kohler or Trapido left South Africa at a time when morally it seemed to them there was no other choice, whereas I left for more practical, mundane reasons (educational opportunities abroad). A section from my LitNet interview speaks to this issue: ‘Milan Kundera wrote a fascinating piece on this question of "national" literature in The New Yorker   earlier this year, and he quotes Goethe as saying, "National literature no longer means much these days; we are entering the era of world literature." Kundera gets to the heart of the problem and deals with (smaller) nations' possessiveness towards their artists and the way that often the entire meaning of a work is reduced to the role it plays in its homeland. This made me think about Seamus Heaney's frustration at times with having everything he wrote being interpreted through the lens of Northern Irish politics. Again, this might be literary urban legend, but I recall somebody telling me about Heaney saying something like, "Sometimes I just want to write about the leaves falling from the trees and not have it mean anything about Northern Ireland – they're just leaves, falling from trees!" Recently I heard Kiran Desai and
Vikram Chandra talking about this too – that they feel like they're always described as Indian authors, when they no longer live in India, and even though they often draw on aspects of their Indian identity in their writing, does that epithet really do them justice? I don't know how I would describe myself if I had to use a national epithet – I'm not really a fully South African author, nor an Australian one, nor an American one – and this is increasingly the case for many people on this globalised planet. I'm very proud and grateful to be claimed as a South African writer, but I don't feel like it's my right to declare myself to be one – it's something that almost has to be decided by outside consensus for it to have any legitimacy. (Blood Kin, Penguin).

Gail Dendy: None. While I may be impressed with some of the writing, I regard myself as an individualist and, perhaps, poetic iconoclast (within the SA context).
(The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Snailpress).

Jann Turner: I love to read Zakes Mda and J.M. Coetzee, but I don't really identify with them. I relate more to Margeurite Poland and Finuala Dowling.
(Southern Cross, Orion UK)

Joanne Hichens: Certainly with the writers out there trying their hand at crime writing, and there are quite a few, I’m glad to say.  There seems to be a wide range of criminals featured in the crime novels, from the white-collar criminal, to our Out To Score gangsters doing abalone poaching to feed the libido of the East. The authors I’ve read include Angela Makholwa, Anthony Brown, Margie Orford, Deon Meyer, Mike Nicol, Tim Keegan, Barbara Erasmus, amongst others. Though some I prefer, it’s so interesting to read all these different takes on crime. We have such a violent society that there is no lack of material from which to kick-start fiction.
(Out To Score, co-authored with Mike Nicol, Random House/Umuzi) 

Dawn Garish: Lynn Freed and Carolyn Slaughter as novelists, although both emigrated years ago. Also Mike Cope, Antjie Krog, Marlene van Niekerk. Tatamkulu Afrika and Joan Meterlekamp as poets.
(Once, Two Islands, Kwela)

Catriona Ross: Finuala Dowling, and Barbara Trapido, who grew up in South Africa. They’re both witty, wise and bold – qualities I adore in writers and in women.
(The Love Book, Oshun)

Lauren Beukes: My friends, Diane Awerbuck, Mary Watson-Seioghe and Henrietta Rose-Innes. I feel like we’re all coming from the same place, a real love of story rather than simply word play, that we veer away from the conventional, that we’re intensely interested in the world. But then, I admit I may be biased because they’re my friends and we’re working together on a collaborative novel called ‘Exquisite Corpse’. The short answer is that I find their writing very exciting. Mary’s ‘Moss’ is a dark and sexy book of interwoven short stories guest starring a fictional cult I totally bought into, Henrietta writes sharply elegant and contained prose with nary a word wasted and Diane wields language with a wit and energy and joy that’s really matchless.
(Branded, to be published in 2008 by Jacana)

Which of your characters do you most deplore?

Kopano Matlwa: I do not deplore any of my characters, deplore is such a strong word, but I feel sorry for a lot of them mostly because they are largely unaware of the sorry reality of their lives and that what they aspire towards is false, fickle and fake.
(Coconut, Jacana)

Fransi Phillips: The sister-in-law from ‘Theresa se droom.’  She is this mean and greedy sadist, hooked on sheep's brains. In the end she turns into a pig, and her husband, not knowing it is his wife, shoots the pig.
(Die Donker God, Random-House/Umuzi)

Patricia Schonstein: The character I most dislike is Cardinal Uriel of Catalonia in The Apothecary’s Daughter. He is the darkest, most frightening character I have worked with. He embodies so much of the worst in human spirit: Evil. Betrayal. Deceit Vanity. Cruelty. Cunning. I modeled him on the Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Tomas Torquemada (1420 – 98) who ruthlessly and ferociously repressed religious heterodoxy and was the prime mover in the expulsion of Jews from Spain.
(Quilt of Dreams, Black Swan)

Pamela Jooste: Jerome the bomb maker in 'Like Water in Wild Places' because by his actions he places himself right outside the boundary of any kind of human decency.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi)

Praba Moodly: The ‘Sen’ brothers from my first novel ‘The Heart Knows No Colour’.   They epitomised the evil that exists and the exploitation of women as a means to an end, irrespective of the consequences. We still see it happening today. To balance that I created strong, caring, yet  flawed men like Gopi, and Hemith, characters from the same novel.
(A Scent So Sweet, Kwela)

Finuala Dowling: I don't have villains, but among the students of my novel Flyleaf, there are some inattentive, cellphone-obsessed, thong-wearing girls that are the bane of any teacher's life.”
(Flyleaf, Penguin)

Sumayya Lee: In ‘The Story of Maha’ my characters have both strengths and weaknesses. My aim is not to demonize any particular character. Rather, it is to reflect systemic oppression, in which one character feeds on another and in so doing creates a stranglehold on individuals. This is not to say that individuals within the system are not better or worse, or they do not bear bad or evil characteristics. Instead, my writing aims to bring into view the fact that the coordination and mutual affirmation of evil in every one of us creates the horror of the society as we know it.
(The Story of Maha, Kwela)

Angelina Sithebe: The spirit (narrator) in Holy Hill for being so aloof and controlling.
(Holy Hill, Random House/ Umuzi).

Margie Orford: This is an odd question. If you read ‘Paradise Lost’ by Milton you will see that Lucifer is the one most deplored. But god is positively anaemic in comparison to that great fallen angel who is so compelling. I deplore the actions of my evil characters - my psychopathic killer in ‘Like Clockwork’, the brutal wife beater too. In ‘Blood Rose’ the corrupt cop, Van Wyk and my killers - Renko and Gretchen. But one's evil characters - the deplorable ones - are so nice to write. So I don’t like them - they do bad things - but I loved writing them. They took me into psychic and emotional places I hadn’t been to before. And if you are to understand the violence that has shaped and defined South Africa that is where you have to go. Because the good characters seem so surprising in contrast.
(Blood Rose, Oshun)

Gail Dendy: I don't deplore any of my characters. While I might not like their behaviour (yes, there are, inter alia, a few murderers, sodomites and family rapists in there) I feel that I cannot create a 'true character' if I hate or dislike him/her.
(The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Snailpress)

Elizabeth Pienaar: Richard in a novel called ‘The Gift’ which is not published (long-listed for the 2007European Union Literary Award). He is completely amoral and so twisted with self-hatred as he struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, that he consciously sets out to destroy emotionally, the woman he is with. Later he saves her life but that doesn't undo the damage he has inflicted.
(Open, is Elizabeth’s latest short story to be published in the anthology Erotica in 2008 by Oshun)

Rose Richards: The father in ‘Luvandwar’. He manages to remain oblivious of his family’s suffering, although (or perhaps because) he is the cause of much of it.
(Luvandvar is one of Rose’s recent stories published in Kunapipi an Australian journal of post-colonial writing)

Anne Landsman: Interestingly enough, Harry Klein in ‘The Rowing Lesson’, the character I find the most deplorable, is also the character I admire the most! His self-involvement, and blindness to the emotional needs of those around him make him hard to stomach.
(The Devil’s Chimney, Penguin)

Emma Van der Vliet: I suppose it would have to be Giraffe Woman, a fairly minor character from ‘Past Imperfect’. She pretended to be a Sister and turned out to be a snake and a traitor to the Sisterly cause.
(Past Imperfect, Penguin).

Dawn Garish: I do not deplore any of the characters in my books. Having said that, Jojo Schoones in 'Once, Two Islands' is the kind of man I would avoid, one who puts others down in order to feel better about himself, and who cannot take responsibility for his actions, and instead justifies what he does.
(Once Two Islands, Kwela)

LM Brickwood: The one character I most deplore in ‘Children of the Moon’ is the Highpriest of Shuruk, evil leader of the giant Edfunians. He stands for the darker side of human nature, ruthless, ambitious and power-hungry, wanting success at all cost. Traits often seen as a virtue nowadays.
(Children of the Moon, Zulu Planet Publishing)

Catriona Ross: Though I love all my characters, some of their traits make me cringe. From my first novel, The Love Book, I deplore the self-righteous sexism of Helena Carmichael, single mother of three daughters. (She says such things as, ‘What do you expect? He’s only a man’). I deplore the cruelty of Tony de Beer (from my second novel, Little Eye, as yet unpublished), government agent, ex-chess champion and general nasty piece of work. And the arrogance and cowardice of young Conrad Louw (Little Eye) makes me roll my eyes. A mute genius, Conrad spies on suicidal women and records people’s conversations from under dinner tables.
(The Love Book, Oshun)

Joanne Hichens: I don’t really deplore any of my characters. I hate to confess, but I really enjoy writing the bad guys, like Mr Woo, our Chinese criminal in Out To Score, and the gangsters Tommy Fortune, Adonis and Delmont, who take drugs and kill at a whim. I suppose I should hate them for the things that they do, but it’s fiction, after all. I don’t hang on to any characters for too long, preferring to move on and meet new ones. 
(Out To Score, co-authored with Mike Nicol, Random House Umuzi)

Lauren Beukes: In my forthcoming novel, ‘Branded’, set in South Africa about ten years from now, there’s a culture jammer activist called Tendeka who is so dogmatic and so devastatingly sincere in his attempts to change the world, that he’s easily mislead, his outrage turns against him, so that he becomes an unwitting patsy for the corporate system he’s trying to overthrow. He’s trying to live up to an ideal of the Struggle he has in his head and if he’d just stop being angry for a moment, he might see that he’s losing everything he has, including his relationship with the one man who will put up with him.  I find him very frustrating, especially because I agree with his politics, just not his methodology.
(Branded, to be published by Jacana in 2008)

Which of your characters do you most admire?

Patricia Schonstein: I have two that I most admire: Bernard in Skyline and Reuben Cohen van Tonder in A Quilt of Dreams. Bernard I love for his courage and lack of bitterness following the loss of his entire family during the war in Mozambique; and also for his hope as he made the long, lonely way to Cape Town in search of new life in Nelson Mandela’s democratic South Africa.
Reuben I love for his courage in admitting to the role he played as a soldier and reservist during apartheid and for his quest for redemption and forgiveness.
(Quilt of Dreams,Black Swan )

Pamela Jooste: The grandmother in 'Like Water in Wild Places' for her innate dignity and her ability to hold her family together at all costs.  Also for her unconditional love, the innocence of her strong faith and the simplicity of the goodness that surrounds her.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi)

Praba Moodly: The protagonist, Lalitha and antagonist, Deviki from ‘A Scent So Sweet.’ Lalitha epitomized everything good and loving whilst remaining true to her family, values and talent. Her best friend Deviki took what she wanted out of life, was a spoilt rich girl who lived in her own world until the bubble burst and she finally had to pay for her actions.
(A Scent So Sweet,)  

Finuala Dowling: I like John Carson in ‘What Poets Need’ because he's unashamed about his different style of masculinity, and because he's funny and fallible.  Quite a few women readers thought I'd based him on someone real... they went looking for him in our local coffee shop, hoping to meet this sensitive, curly-headed poet.
(Flyleaf, Penguin)

Sumayya Lee: My protagonist Maha, like all my characters was born from the medley of people around me – and in spite of her many faults I do admire her strengths.
(The Story of Maha, Kwela)

Angelina Sithebe: Claude, from Holy Hill for being such an optimist and never giving up. (Holy Hill, Random House/ Umuzi)

Margie Orford: I am writing a series. My main characters are Dr Clare Hart, an investigative journalist and sometime police profiler. She's cool and surprising. And fiesty and vulnerable and a deadly shot. So I have to admire her - after all I have seven books for her – ‘Like Clockwork’ and ‘Blood Rose’ are published and coming out in Czech, Russian, German, Dutch and French next year and the year after. I am busy with ‘Daddy's Girl’, the third in the series but a 'prequel. I wanted to find out how Clare got involved with my favourite character, Captian Riedwaan Faizal, my cop character. I like both of them - they are flawed and human and battered around the edges. But they have good hearts and an instinct for kindness, which, in my view, is the only thing that will counter the violence destroying our communities.
(Blood Rose, Oshun).

Catriona Ross: I admire Helena from The Love Book, for bringing up her daughters solo while maintaining a rip-roaring social life, string of lovers and sense of humour. I’m slightly in love with the earnest, curly-haired teenager, Jonathan Cohen, from Little Eye.
(The Love Book, Oshun)

Tobea Brink: In ‘Die Hemelklip’, I adore Hoesa, the farm worker. He is a sincere, caring, hardworking person with great emotional depth.
(Die Hemelklip, Kwela)

Fransi Phillips: I admire the clown from ‘77 Stories oor 'n clown’.  Even though he is an idiot in some ways, he can do all these senseless magical tricks.  Terrible things happen to him, but he survives everything.
(Die Donker God, Random-House/Umuzi)

Gail Dendy: Obviously, because I'm writing poetry, by characters are drawn differently from those existing in prose. I therefore cannot say I admire any character, but I have a couple of 'likes.For example, I happen to like the unnamed elderly wife in the poem 'Age' (in ‘The Lady Missionary’, Kwela, 2007) who, with her husband, literally flies (a la Chagall paintings) above the limitations imposed by old age and physical decrepitude and who, in a final searing moment of tenderness, understanding and compassion, 'wraps [her husband's] bandages as on the fists of a fighter'. I also like the lady missionary (of the title poem of the collection) for her goodness and her faults, which include her ditsiness, misguided good-heartedness, her peculiar (though historically accurate) racism, and child-like view of the world.
(The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Snailpress)

Kopano Matlwa: I admire Tshepo (‘Coconut’ part one) the most because he makes an attempt to reclaim what he believes to be lost, although it is a weak attempt, it is an attempt all the same and that is much more than most people do.
(Coconut, Jacana)

Elizabeth Pienaar: Susanna who features in a story of the same title, published in the ‘African Road’ anthology, and in ‘The Gift’. Because she is able to hold on to her sense of truth, of living a true life, no matter what, when her actions are judged by society as wrong, (she has an affair with her married stepbrother) and when most others would give in to lesser emotions.
(Open, is Elizabeth’s latest short story to be published in the anthology Erotica in 2008 by Oshun)

Rose Richards: Rachel in ‘Severing the Past’ (a short story). She makes a definite decision to leave her past behind, although she doesn’t always succeed.  She takes risks.
(Luvandvar is one of Rose’s recent stories published in Kunapipi an Australian journal of post-colonial writing)

Emma Van der Vliet: From ‘Past Imperfect’, I admire Maddy for being direct and outspoken and sassy.
(Past Imperfect, Penguin).

Jann Turner: I most admire Elise, the heroine of my first novel, ‘Heartland’. Her courage is ordinary and her bravery quiet, but she has the guts to make the hard, just choices and thereby changes everything and everyone around her.
(Southern Cross, Orion UK)

LM Brickwood: The character I most admire in ‘Children of the Moon’ is the Lady of Cydonia, ruler of the advanced, peaceful Alesian civilization. She is a good, strong leader, who is advised by men and women equally and has the good of all in mind, instead of personal gain. Even compassion for her Edfunian enemies. This has a real basis in prehistory and represents what I would like to see happen in a functional, tolerant society today.
(Children of the Moon, Zulu Planet Publishing)

Lauren Beukes: the character I most enjoy is Toby, the amoral blogger in my novel, Branded. He’s an absolute bastard, but also a lithe roguish charmer who can wriggle his way into or out of anything. He has a real understanding of the world, but he uses that to slide things his way. He’s bright and vicious. If Long Street took human form, it would be Toby.
(Branded, to be published by Jacana in 2008)

Joanne Hichens: Again, once I’m done with them, I’m done. I do like the female protagonist in Out To Score. Rae-Anne Hendricks has one leg, an infinite capacity for patience with her very trying partner in Mullet Mendes, one of our PI’s. Readers have generally been fascinated with her drug back-story, so it would be fun to develop her character. I admire her because she drugged it up, lost her leg because of this lifestyle – had it amputated as a result of heroin use - and now helps kids in local communities to stay clear of a similar fate. There has been talk of developing her as a PI, but we’ll see…
(Out To Score, co-authored with Mike Nicol, Random House/Umuzi)

As a writer, what do you consider your greatest achievement?

Kopano Matlwa: My greatest achievement as a writer is winning the EU literary award, it really had nothing to do with my own talent but a blessing from God that gave me an opporrtunity to share my thoughts with young black South Africans. I don’t think I could trade that for any amount of money, and still laugh quietly to myself at how completley ridiculous the whole thing is (because I really am just a kid).
(Coconut, Jacana)

Finuala Dowling: Probably my first collection of poetry, I flying.  I think the first book -- the virgin book -- is often like that.  It comes from an unselfconscious place, it says what it wants to say without even expecting to be read.  But then of course, it is read, and everything you write after that is written with an acute awareness of audience.
(Flyleaf, Penguin).

Sumayya Lee: Being published – a twenty-two year-old dream come true!
(The Story of Maha, Kwela)

Rose Richards: Hanging in there through many years of rejection.  If I didn’t love writing and strongly believe I have something to say, I would have given up in despair long before now. A lot of my work is unpublished.  My second greatest achievement is overcoming my sense of shame about my tiny published portfolio (still working on this one).
(Luvandvar is one of Rose’s recent stories published in Kunapipi an Australian journal of post-colonial writing)

Catriona Ross: The fact that I’m adapting and innovating, right now. I see increasing numbers of people around the world reading and writing on the Internet, so I’m moving into the digital realm. I’ve just finished writing an ebook, to be launched early next year, and hope to unleash Cassandra Bright – an interactive novel about an aspirant novelist, in which the reader learns the basics of novel-writing (get it?) – in 2008. My other greatest achievement as a writer is the fact that I keep writing and always will, regardless of circumstance. This is because, apart from piano playing, sex and the close-embrace Argentine tango, writing is one of the best things to do on earth.
(The Love Book, Oshun)

LM Brickwood: My greatest achievement was that I persisted in finding a publisher against all the odds, who doesn’t mind swimming against the stream and who takes marketing very seriously. And that I found the creative energy in me to finish 3 books in 3 years despite the financial sacrifices. I’m also very inspired by readers’ comments and the many different things they see in my stories.
(Children of the Moon, Zulu Planet Publishing)

Pamela Jooste: The response I get from my readers who take the trouble to email, telephone and write to me to tell them that something I have written has touched them because that is connection that takes one further than simply reading a good, bad or indifferent story.  It means two people have touched and acknowledged that right down at a fundamental level the human condition is shared by us all.
(Star of the Morning, Random House/Umuzi)

Margie Orford: Having written my first book, ‘Double Trouble’, published by Heinemann Junior African Writers series in 1996. and then going on to produce a few books a year ever since. To keep going is a miraculous achievement - it is much, much easier to have babies than to write books - and 1996 was the year I had my third and last baby and it was the year I published my first book. I did the final editorial in the hallway on the way to the hospital, breathing between contractions. I think now that a bigger achievement is believing enough in myself to keep writing. And financially it has paid off! Thanks to my international sales.
(Blood Rose, Oshun)

Tobea Brink: To have asked someone to look at my manuscript!
(Die Hemelklip, Kwela)

Maxine Case: Although I have won two awards for ‘All we have left unsaid’ (Commonwealth Writers Prize: Best First Book (Africa) and joint winner of the Herman Charles Bosman Award), my most poignant moment was when my publisher, Nelleke de Jager, told me that my manuscript was good enough to be published.
(All We Have Left Unsaid, Kwela)

Gabeba Baderoon: Getting up early and working for several hours every day doing this small, intimate thing called writing.
(A Hundred Silences, Kwela/Snailpress)

Gail Dendy: Hitting the jackpot, so to speak, with my very first collection. My aim was simply to complete a collection of poems and send it to various British publishers (at this time I was living in London for one year). I had no idea whether I was talented enough to be published. The manuscript, called ‘Assault and the Moth’, was in fact published in selected/pamphlet format by Harold Pinter's Greville Press. I was told that all three co-editors (Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Godbert and Anthony Astbury) had been impressed with, and approved my work, ie a three-out-of-three score, which apparently for Greville Press was fairly unusual.
(The Lady Missionary, Kwela/Snailpress)

Fransi Phillips: The fact that I haven't killed some male critics.
(Die Donker God, Random House/Umuzi)

Joanne Hichens: I loved doing Out To Score. I have also just sold a youth novel titled Stained to a British publisher (Ransom), as part of their Cutting Edge series. The novel was originally short-listed for the Sanlam Youth Literature Award in 2005, but the publishers felt there was too much sex and violence. The British publisher had no problems with this. I guess my greatest achievement, as a new author, is actually just hanging in there with the writing! As I keep working on a novel of my own…
(Out To Score, co-authored with Mike Nicol, Random House/Umuzi)

Elizabeth Pienaar: Keeping at it and writing what is there for me to be written even if it is not politically correct and I know it pulls me away from more commercially viable work.
(Open, is Elizabeth’s latest short story to be published in the anthology Erotica in 2008 by Oshun)

Lauren Beukes: the thing I’m most proud of is URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika, the animated show I helped develop two years ago, which I now work on as head writer with the incredibly talented Sarah Lotz and Sam Wilson. It’s a kids show that the M&G described as “delightfully subversive” and it has killer robots and giant monsters and magical superpowers, but it also handles big issues in a way that’s deft and funny. We want to encourage kids to ask questions about hot topics like online chats, cell phone porn, bullying, racism, the environment, the beauty myth, celebrity, advertising and disability.
(Branded to be published in 2008 by Jacana)

Anne Landsman: My greatest achievement as a writer is the way in which I penetrate the inner lives of my characters so fully that they seem to act entirely out of their own volition.
(The Devil’s Chimney, Penguin)

Dawn Garish:  Managing to write my way into and then out of the overwhelmingly difficult circumstances of Phyllis Wilds in my latest novel accepted for publication, working title 'Evidence', which required me to revisit, broadly and in the psychological sense, boarding school and abuse.
(Once, Two Islands, Kwela)

Praba Moodly: Having my second novel ‘A Scent So Sweet’ chosen by Exclusive Books  as part of their 2006 Homebru promotion, seeing the advert on the big screen, hearing the ads on radio and having the same novel long listed  for the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Award. Receiving such a positive response from readers who were enthralled by the story was for me a major achievement. (A Scent So Sweet, Kwela)

Angelina Sithebe: The writing and publishing of Holy Hill, for the way it just came together, I still get goosebumps when reading some parts.
(Holy Hill, Random House/Umuzi)

Emma Van der Vliet: Managing to write about difficult things and unpalatable issues in a way that is easy to read.
(Past Imperfect, Penguin)

Jann Turner: Typing in the words 'the end' on the last page of the manuscript of my third novel (forthcoming) ‘The Dignity Channel’ felt like a huge achievement, but I'm not sure I consider that my greatest achievement. It feels fantastic when someone recognises me and starts chatting excitedly about their responses to a character or a situation in one of my stories - then I feel I've created something real enough for readers and viewers to care about and think about.
(Southern Cross, Orion UK)

Patricia Schonstein: If I have succeeded, through my novels, in highlighting the futility of war and the need to engender peace, not only amongst ourselves but also towards the earth and all living things, then I would consider that to be my greatest achievement.
But winning the Prix du Marais 2005 for the French translation of Skyline was the most moving experience in terms of response from readers. This prize was awarded by the municipal library of Lille in France and I received it at L’Odyssée, Médiathèque in Lomme. Librarians made up a short list of titles and library users voted. The library outreach at the local prison brought in many votes for my novel. I think they swayed the vote. One of the prisoners was permitted to attend the prize giving ceremony and was in the audience with her minder. I was not permitted to meet her because of prison protocol. But I was told she was there and about how the prisoners had identified with my novel. When I think of that day (of standing there with a big bunch of flowers, and everyone clapping, and of knowing that a group of my readers were prisoners, and that one was there sharing my honour, and that my book was giving meaning to broken lives) my heart aches. Really, I feel it physically.
(Quilt of Dreams, Black Swan)

*

It is usual in an essay, even an introductory one, to have a closing paragraph with some summation or conclusion, but I do not want to distil any such summation or conclusion from what has been written, others may, but I do not want to reduce it in any way.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
A great thank you to the publishers who helped me to get in contact with the women writers featured in this article and to also to Deborah Horn-Botha of SA PEN who was extremely helpful in that regard. Especially, thank you to all the women writers who took time from their crammed schedules and writing work to answer my questions at very short notice.