Lauren Beukes

Gordon Van Gelder

Q-1.

What country/ethnicity/culture do you identify yourself with?

A-1.

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I identify as a South African. I'd like to say that's it. Full stop. But I am also English-speaking, of Afrikaans descent, white, female――and there’s all the baggage that comes with that, growing up under a racist apartheid state and its appalling, enduring legacy.

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Q-2.
 

SF/F/Horror/Slipstream genre has always been dominated by Anglo-American language. Is Anglo-American genre fiction is your major influence?
 

A-2.

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I read very widely, from Greg Egan to Jennifer Egan, Alan Moore to Lorrie Moore. I would say my influences are mainly Anglo-American, particularly Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Joyce Carol Oates, TC Boyle, David Mitchell, Jeff Noon, and I've recently loved books by Patrick Ness, Glen Duncan, Dennis Lehane, Lavie Tidhar, Jhumpa Lahiri, Christopher Priest, the Brazilian comic DayTripper by Moon and Ba.

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Q-3.
 

Give us the ratio of your reading of Anglo-American fiction against your own or non-English literature. Currently.
 

A-3.

It's skewed at the moment, because I've been reading a lot of books about Chicago for research for my new novel and a lot of Japanese literature for research for the comic I'm writing for Vertigo, which is set partly in Tokyo and partly in a re-imagined fairytale Japan and reading manuscripts from novelist friends that I've been asked to consider writing a shout for or to speak at their launch (most recently Congolese refugee writer Jamala Safari's devastating, warm, funny, heart-breaking human novel about child soldiers: The Great Agony and Pure Laughter of the Gods.) So it's really all over the place. At a guess: I mainly read Anglo-American, probably 80% at least, 15% South African and 5% other. Largely that's because I'm English-speaking and a lot of great work doesn't make it into translation.

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Q-4.
 

To our dismay, a lot of so called World things are actually American ones. From Baseball's World series to our genre's Worldcon (almost) or World Fantasy Awards. How can we correct it to its real structure, into the real chaotic world?
 

A-4.

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It's a tough one. There is a huge American cultural influence. We all grew up on American TV and comic books and movies. I think it comes down to exposure, trying to introduce other ideas and cultures into America, sneakily, through fiction and film and cartoons and pop music, which is something the Internet has made more feasible. I remember being part of an anime pirating club in the 1990s, because that was the only way you could get hold of it, lovingly copying Perfect Blue or Wicked City from one VHS tape to another. Now you can order online (and actually pay for it!) and find likeminded communities easily.

Q-5.

Yet, it's true that we're culturally much influenced by American pop culture. Haruki Murakami cannot write like he does now without his American literature and Jazz influence. Is it the same for your case? Can you imagine you write without that influence at all?
 

A-5.

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That influence is pervasive. It's part of who we are and what the world is. You can't ignore it. My personal experience with Zoo City has been that Anglo-American readers are open to new ideas and that's exactly why the book has resonated so much, because it's not about the same-old familiar places and people like London or LA or New York. Because Johannesburg is strange and alien and yet recognizable too.

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Q-6.
 

But these days a lot of young writers and editors work in English language and for American market. Do you hold any grudge against working like this? Or is it a natural reaction to that influence?
 

A-6.

I write in English anyway and that's certainly, it seems, where the biggest market is. If I was French or Vietnamese or Ghanaian, I might resent it more, but even then as a writer you want your work to be read, to be accessible, and right now, in the world, that means publishing in English.

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My next two books are actually set in the US, not for commercial reasons (although it's worked out well that way), but because that's where these particular stories need to be set.

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The Shining Girls is about a time-travelling serial killer, set in Chicago. I wanted to play with history and how the world has changed and if I'd set it in South Africa, it would have been an apartheid novel. I've lived in Chicago and it has a lot of similar issues to Johannesburg and Cape Town, racial divides, poverty, crime, and the clash between urban and rural. It felt right.

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Broken Monsters is about dreams and the subconscious of cities and I've always been intrigued by Detroit, the birth and death of the American dream and possible reinvention now, abandoned places, dead machines, stilled factories――and the people who remain behind.

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But that doesn't mean I've gone American or that I'm never coming back to South Africa with my writing. I have ideas for novels and comics set here, from a Joburg western to an apartheid novel about the nature of evil and a mad mythological adventure that spans two hundred years of history.

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Q-7.
 

If and when you have to write in English, do you do that to English-American readers, or to the global readers?
 

A-7.
 

I wrote Moxyland for a South African audience and threw readers into the middle of a weird branded future Cape Town they had to figure out as they went along. There was some slang and basic concepts which proved hard to translate, so when I got a two book deal with Angry Robot, a UK/US publisher, I had an international audience in mind when I wrote Zoo City.

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Not that I made many concessions, but whenever I used slang or Afrikaans or Zulu words, I tried to make sure there was enough context in the sentence that you could figure out what it meant. I think we need to give readers more credit for being able to figure stuff out.

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Q-8.

Is there any works or writers from your local scene you can sincerely recommend to the world readers? And why do you recommend them? Is it because they have no equivalent works or writers in Anglo-American scene? Or is it because they perfectly fit there and have many things in common that we should share? Which do you think is important, originality, or affinity?
 

A-8.
 

Originality matters the most to me. Tell me a story I haven't heard before. Make it true.

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What I find interesting about South African fiction is that it usually has some kind of social conscience, from chick lit to horror. It's a reflection of who we are and where we are and our inability to turn away the pervasive every day issues playing out very visibly here, that are a microcosm for the issues of the rest of the world. I'd recommend SL Grey's trilogy The Mall, The Ward and The New Girl, which deals with consumerism and an appalling twisted underworld where the denizens of Management have created a false and disgusting hierarchy. It's crazily strange and original.

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I also loved Lily Herne's YA zombie apocalypse series Mallrats, set ten years after the 2010 World Cup, also playing with social issues and consumerism in a smart and subversive way.

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Charlie Human's Apocalypse Now Now, out next year, is mad and fun urban fantasy that pokes its finger in the eye of everything from school bureaucracies to politicians with world-rending mantis mecha from khoi-san legend, an apartheid chemist creating monsters and a zombie stripper queen. Again, ferociously original.

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Deon Meyer's thrillers are fantastic and deep-rooted in the South African reality with a police force overwhelmed by crime and bungling administration.

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In non-genre:

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Jamala Safari's The Great Agony and Pure Laughter of the Gods is a devastating and deeply human account of child soldiers in the DRC, written by a Congolese refugee in his fourth language.

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Zukiswa Wanner tackles ideas of African masculinity in Men of the South, Sifiso Mzobe writes authentically about crime in the townships.

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Thando Mgqolozana tackles manhood and religion in his novels, Siphiwo Mahala's short stories are amazing, Kgebetli Moele's Room 207 is one of my favourites, about ambitious young men in inner city Johannesburg, the place of big dreams that easily turn to nightmares.

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Henrietta Rose-Innes and Diane Awerbuck write beautiful evocative fiction, dreamy realism with sharp edges. Likewise Ivan Vladislavic, who is probably our foremost novelist at the moment.

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Q-9.
 

Have you ever read and liked any Japanese works, in and out of our genre? What aspect of it attracted you?
 

A-9.
 

I've read a fair bit of cult Japanese literature. Banana Yoshimoto, Haruki Murakami, Taichi Yamada and pulp like Natsuo Kirino, Ryu Murakami, Koji Suzuki,. The stories appealed to me, an evocative, provocative strangeness, intriguing or subversive ideas or just beautiful writing. Which is what I look for in fiction generally. (And in some cases as research for my yokai-yakuza comic The Hidden Kingdom that I've been writing for Vertigo). I've recently got a long list of manga recommendations, which I'm looking forward to checking out.

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Q-10.
 

Could you please explain what you do to promote foreign literature to your readers or your own works to foreign readers?
 

A-10.

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Winning the Arthur C Clarke Award helped a lot! And being with a reputable and hungry literary agency (Blake Friedmann in London) that pushes foreign rights sales.

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Also connecting with bloggers and podcasters and foreign press, who usually find me through my website or on Twitter, from Pakistani radio to Swedish electro music fans.

I try to do interesting things around my books that make me happy, from convincing artists to decorate vinyl toys inspired by Zoo City to auction for charity to doing official soundtracks for the novels with African Dope records in Cape Town. They're fun to do and it creates a buzz around the book.