Re-imagining the African identity post-apartheid

Niq Mhlongo is South Africa’s award-winning essayist, journalist and novelist. His first novel, Dog Eat Dog, was published in 2004 to resounding acclaim. Since then, he has published Way Back Home, a novel; Affluenza and Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree; short story collections, and edited Johannesburg Noir and Black Tax, short story collection and essays respectively. He is currently an artist-in-residence in Germany, under DAAD fellowship. He spoke to Life&Style about his writing journey, his recently released novel, Paradise in Gaza, and things in-between.

Your writing has taken South Africa, and by extension the modern world by a post-apartheid consciousness storm. How did you get there as a writer?

Well, I grew up during the apartheid era. I actually voted in 1994 when President Mandela came into power. I have also experienced life under post-apartheid leadership. Hence, I saw the transition and what has become of it. As a writer, I feel that the past has not been told well enough. South Africans say that we are a rainbow nation. We grapple with the challenges of racism, inequality, poverty, hunger and many others, yet we hardly ask ourselves what the root cause is. That is why I interrogate the past through my writing, and it is a feeling of accomplishment when I successfully get people to reflect about their history after reading my work.

Do you say that historical fiction play a greater role in creating awareness about a people’s past than mere recorded facts?

For me, both history and fiction play a complementary role. However, fiction enables people to go beyond what is recorded in the text to ask “why?” They are compelled to interrogate the motives behind certain historical happenings. For example, people get to ask why apartheid laws were implemented and how that affected their relationships. The whole idea of fiction is that it helps in triggering human emotions, and tells a human story in a way that the reader will empathise and sympathise with characters. Fiction humanises us.

You left University of Cape Town where you were pursuing a law degree to write/ finish your first novel, “Dog Eat Dog.” Talk to us about the motivation that inspired the move.

Yes, that is correct. I grew up wanting to be a lawyer. Most of the successful people who lived in my neighbourhood were lawyers and I thought to succeed I needed to be one. So when I completed my Bachelor of Arts in African Literature and Political Studies, I enrolled for a Bachelor of Laws. First, at University of Witswatersrand then I moved to University of Cape Town. I was in my final year in 2002 when I started writing my first novel. Sooner than later, it took all my time and I decided to take time off and focus on it. I finished writing and went about looking for a publisher. It was received with great acclaim and it opened many doors for me. I did not go back to law class but focused on my writing.

Before we talk about your books, it’s good to acknowledge that your works have been widely anthologised and published on journals too. How are you able to stay so productive?

I keep writing because I do not get enough of it. I always have stories to tell; some of which I had written some time ago but need polishing and publishing. I also feel like there are very many stories about South Africa which have not been told and it is my duty to tell them. Hence, the urge to keep telling stories and from my point of view and understanding keeps me productive.

In your essay published in “The Johannesburg Review of Books” titled “Covid-19 and the transformation of a writer into silence,” you mentioned that you completed the novel while in a residency. You have been part of many literary residencies before. How does an uninitiated/ up and coming writer get such opportunities?

There are many opportunities once you become a writer. I think the greatest challenge with the younger generation of writers is that they do not get to publish as much. However, you need a body of work that cannot be overlooked to get some of these opportunities like residencies.

For example in my case, I started applying for this residency back in 2012. I was competing with people who were well known and had great work out already, such as Yvonne Adiambo Owuor and the late Binyavanga Wainaina. Besides, I only had three books to my name. But I kept writing and publishing, and by the time I was offered the residency, I already had seven books to my name. The secret is to write on, publish and keep applying.

You also confessed that you are an extroverted writer, that you find your stories in populated places as pubs, football stadia, market…and that Covid-19 restrictions set you for depression in a foreign land. How did you get back to your feet?

That’s a great question. Whenever I go to social places, I do not go with the mind of gathering stories. I go to enjoy but I always know in the back of my mind that there can be stories to be told. So I get to collect ideas.

When Covid-19 hit, I was holed up alone in my apartment in Germany. There was a lot going on in my mind, and wondering whether my family was safe. However, I went back to the notes that I had collected over time and started writing more stories and essays. Writing has helped me stay sane and kept my mind occupied.

How do you manage between family, writing and travels? I guess it’s a hustle?

Sincerely speaking, it is a tough experience. But thanks to modern technology; we speak often over video calls and we get to ease the boredom. However, that cannot replace physical touch and I thoroughly miss my family. But they are supportive as they understand why I am travelling widely and not spending enough family time with them. I hope to go back home in 2021 and spend some quality time with my family.

In all your books, you consistently include aspects of African Spirituality, something that would feel mythical to the young readers. How is that element crucial in your writing?

It is very crucial. I grew up in a traditional African home and we believed in myths and folklores and African spirituality in general. Beyond that, it has been my duty to remind our people that African spirituality has always been part of us, and this includes traditional ways of healing, for example.

Sadly, we have abandoned our African ways in favour of the Western traditions which were imported to us. This, we do without realising that there are some things that cannot be healed through Western medicine. For example, if your grandfather appointed you to be a Sangoma (traditional healer) through the ancestors, and you turn out schizophrenic, it is something that cannot be addressed through Western medicine. You have to go to your traditional people. My persuasion was to show that we are still spiritual and a communal people.

Let’s talk about your latest novel, “Paradise in Gaza,” released last month. What was the initial inspiration?

When I started writing the book in 2008, it was a way of finding closure. I had a brother who was born in the 60s and passed on. I didn’t know him but my mother used to narrate stories about him. I had always missed him and writing the novel was a way of remembering him and healing.

Also, in 2008, I had an opportunity to travel across Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa as I listened to the people narrate their memory of Mozambican President Samora Machel who died in a plane crash. Most of the stories they told were tied to African spirituality and that intrigued me. I wanted to amplify the African spiritual and communal aspect.

From the start, you put Mpisi Mpisani, who is the protagonist, in a very difficult situation. He has to deal with apartheid laws to not be deported to his village, and also his modern wife in the city, Ntombazi and Khanisya in the village. Is that by any chance a reflection of the depressing lives South African men led during apartheid?

Yes, you are quite right. What apartheid government did was to depress the patriarch. The black man would then go home and oppress the wife. Hence, the apartheid laws were intended to define the African family the way the government wanted it to be, so as to serve its interests.

I also wanted to show that women paid a great price. They suffered under the apartheid laws as they could not own property, and that meant that their dignity was dispossessed of them. They also suffered under the patriarchy of oppressed men. The book is more of a celebration and acknowledgement of women and their role in keeping the family together, despite the hardships.

I’m curious: what did dispossessing the Black South Africans of their land exactly mean?

By taking away the land from the Africans, the apartheid government was denying the Black people their human dignity. They stripped them off the economic means and instead implemented laws to brutalise them. That is why the agitation for land, which continues today, is a struggle to regain full humanity and dignity of the Black South Africans.

Having set most of your stories in Soweto, South Africa, do you have a vision of a future Soweto different from what it is today?

Yes, I do have a vision of a more developed Soweto. First, to imagine a different Soweto is to remember that Soweto was the construct of the apartheid government. They wanted to concentrate people in a place where they did not have enough land or means of production, so that they could be controlled and possibly provide labour in the mines.

Soweto is surrounded by five mines, and Johannesburg is next there. Hence, in terms of physical space, it is not going to expand.

However, it has developed in terms of infrastructure and businesses. There are about thirty malls where Black people run different businesses including butcheries, supermarkets, and clothe stores amongs others. It has developed over the years and it will continue to grow.