Damon Galgut – “It’s much easier to oppress people you don’t see as fully human”

I’m sorry to say that my reading was less precocious than my early publication. I was raised on a diet of Enid Blyton (much maligned these days) and Tolkien. I was hungry to read almost anything, so even my mother’s cast-offs like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh did the trick. One early literary encounter that left a profound impression was with Roald Dahl: The adult stories, not the ones for kiddies. Of those, one in particular, Pig, made a big difference to how I perceived writing and its power.

In addition to the representation of the political landscape of South Africa, the many facets of what it means to be human is a recurring concern in your writing. Is that also a major driving force behind your literary endeavours?

I suppose so – though I suspect that’s true of most novels. What perspective to draw on if not the human one? Even books with creature-protagonists, like Watership Down, are really about people in animal disguise. Obviously, it’s what we relate to.

The shifting narrative perspectives in The Promise had a cinematic quality. What drew you to that particular narrative style?

I broke off from writing the novel to do a couple of drafts of a film script and when I returned to my book, I suddenly saw new possibilities in the narrative voice. I was scared to use that approach, because it breaks all the rules of prose. But at the same time I was thrilled by the endlessly jumping points-of-view and the resonances they created.

Another aspect of your storytelling in The Promise that garnered attention was the absence of the inner voice for your black characters. Was that due to a fear of inauthentic representation of the Black experience or an authentic representation of the absence of that voice for your white characters and the world they inhabit?

It’s a horrible fact that many white South Africans simply do not perceive the inner lives of their fellow Black South Africans. That blindness, that moral myopia, was probably a necessary element of apartheid, because it’s much easier to oppress people you don’t see as fully human. Sadly, though, it’s a blank spot which persists to this day in my country. I wanted readers to experience it as white South Africans do, and to be bothered by it. So the choice was deliberate, and true to its subject. Alas!

READ MORE: Essay: Damon Galgut – cartographer of the South African psyche

In a Strange Room straddled the liminal space of being regarded as a memoir and a work of fiction, as did Arctic Summer between being a biographical account of sorts and a fictional enterprise. The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction came to be blurred for both the works. Is that a reflection on how you perceive writing as a creative art form to be?

Yes, I think that’s true. Increasingly, the separation between categories is becoming more porous and conditional. How much of any biography or memoir is actually, objectively “true” and how much of it could be considered fiction? Every act of perception is partly filtered through one’s own consciousness, and takes on a narrative shape unique to you. Likewise, every piece of fiction is drawing on your own experience and is thus generated by life. The two depend on each other, and I love writing which breaks down the barriers between them.

You have written across a range of different literary forms; from short stories to plays and novels. How does your writing process differ for each of these?  

They’re forms with their own set of rules and expectations. You have to bear that in mind when you write. A play, for example, doesn’t even require spoken language to be successful. You can stage a whole drama without a word being spoken. Poetry is an aural experience more than a logical one. I have been deeply moved by poems that make no obvious narrative sense. So each form has its own spirit, and you have to measure up to that when you change genres.

Do you find the short story a more challenging form as a writer?

More challenging than what? If you mean by comparison with novels, then I agree, it’s in some senses more difficult to write a short story than a novel. Again, the rules are different. A short story is like a snapshot, a brief window opening on a life or a world. A novel can spill in all directions endlessly, without constraint. They’re very different entities.

READ MORE: The Stuff of Life

You have spoken about how books can’t change the world. Is that a belief that you still hold onto? Do you feel that there is a particular role for the literary fiction writer in terms of documenting how the political informs and shapes the personal?

There are very few books which have exerted an obvious effect on world events. All of them, in my opinion, are non-fiction works, and they tend to be religious texts (such as the Bible, for example) or political-philosophical tracts (Das Kapital). But novels? Come on. People are always claiming that this or that novel changed their lives, but…really? We are moved or dazzled or depressed by fiction, sometimes profoundly so, but life rolls on afterwards in the same old way.

On the other hand, novels cumulatively make a difference to human perception. Each novel teaches you that the world isn’t made in your own image. There are as many versions of reality as there are people, and reading will remind you of that fact. There is a big difference between people who read novels and people who don’t. Nelson Mandela read novels. Donald Trump does not. Their sensibilities are not the same. It would be an excellent rule to demand that no politician can stand for office if he or she doesn’t like fiction.

Eurocentrism in publishing continues to determine what is read by a global audience when it comes to Anglophone literatures. Who are some of the South African writers that have not yet received due attention, in your opinion?

Hmmm, that’s a tricky question. I tend to think that, in the long run, writers who are worth noticing do get noticed. But it can take a long while and no doubt injustices occur. I’ll limit myself to that reply and refrain from naming anybody, which is fair, because I’m woefully under read in South African literature anyway.

What are you working on next?

A collection of short stories. Long overdue by now, but the Booker is to blame for that.

Simar Bhasin is an independent journalist.

You became a published writer at 19 and you’ve previously mentioned how your battle with Burkitt’s lymphoma during your childhood led to literature being an important part of your life. Which are the writers you encountered growing up who inspired you to become an author?

I’m sorry to say that my reading was less precocious than my early publication. I was raised on a diet of Enid Blyton (much maligned these days) and Tolkien. I was hungry to read almost anything, so even my mother’s cast-offs like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh did the trick. One early literary encounter that left a profound impression was with Roald Dahl: The adult stories, not the ones for kiddies. Of those, one in particular, Pig, made a big difference to how I perceived writing and its power.

In addition to the representation of the political landscape of South Africa, the many facets of what it means to be human is a recurring concern in your writing. Is that also a major driving force behind your literary endeavours?

I suppose so – though I suspect that’s true of most novels. What perspective to draw on if not the human one? Even books with creature-protagonists, like Watership Down, are really about people in animal disguise. Obviously, it’s what we relate to.

The shifting narrative perspectives in The Promise had a cinematic quality. What drew you to that particular narrative style?

I broke off from writing the novel to do a couple of drafts of a film script and when I returned to my book, I suddenly saw new possibilities in the narrative voice. I was scared to use that approach, because it breaks all the rules of prose. But at the same time I was thrilled by the endlessly jumping points-of-view and the resonances they created.

Another aspect of your storytelling in The Promise that garnered attention was the absence of the inner voice for your black characters. Was that due to a fear of inauthentic representation of the Black experience or an authentic representation of the absence of that voice for your white characters and the world they inhabit?

It’s a horrible fact that many white South Africans simply do not perceive the inner lives of their fellow Black South Africans. That blindness, that moral myopia, was probably a necessary element of apartheid, because it’s much easier to oppress people you don’t see as fully human. Sadly, though, it’s a blank spot which persists to this day in my country. I wanted readers to experience it as white South Africans do, and to be bothered by it. So the choice was deliberate, and true to its subject. Alas!

READ MORE: Essay: Damon Galgut – cartographer of the South African psyche

In a Strange Room straddled the liminal space of being regarded as a memoir and a work of fiction, as did Arctic Summer between being a biographical account of sorts and a fictional enterprise. The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction came to be blurred for both the works. Is that a reflection on how you perceive writing as a creative art form to be?

Yes, I think that’s true. Increasingly, the separation between categories is becoming more porous and conditional. How much of any biography or memoir is actually, objectively “true” and how much of it could be considered fiction? Every act of perception is partly filtered through one’s own consciousness, and takes on a narrative shape unique to you. Likewise, every piece of fiction is drawing on your own experience and is thus generated by life. The two depend on each other, and I love writing which breaks down the barriers between them.

You have written across a range of different literary forms; from short stories to plays and novels. How does your writing process differ for each of these?  

They’re forms with their own set of rules and expectations. You have to bear that in mind when you write. A play, for example, doesn’t even require spoken language to be successful. You can stage a whole drama without a word being spoken. Poetry is an aural experience more than a logical one. I have been deeply moved by poems that make no obvious narrative sense. So each form has its own spirit, and you have to measure up to that when you change genres.

Do you find the short story a more challenging form as a writer?

More challenging than what? If you mean by comparison with novels, then I agree, it’s in some senses more difficult to write a short story than a novel. Again, the rules are different. A short story is like a snapshot, a brief window opening on a life or a world. A novel can spill in all directions endlessly, without constraint. They’re very different entities.

READ MORE: The Stuff of Life

You have spoken about how books can’t change the world. Is that a belief that you still hold onto? Do you feel that there is a particular role for the literary fiction writer in terms of documenting how the political informs and shapes the personal?

There are very few books which have exerted an obvious effect on world events. All of them, in my opinion, are non-fiction works, and they tend to be religious texts (such as the Bible, for example) or political-philosophical tracts (Das Kapital). But novels? Come on. People are always claiming that this or that novel changed their lives, but…really? We are moved or dazzled or depressed by fiction, sometimes profoundly so, but life rolls on afterwards in the same old way.

On the other hand, novels cumulatively make a difference to human perception. Each novel teaches you that the world isn’t made in your own image. There are as many versions of reality as there are people, and reading will remind you of that fact. There is a big difference between people who read novels and people who don’t. Nelson Mandela read novels. Donald Trump does not. Their sensibilities are not the same. It would be an excellent rule to demand that no politician can stand for office if he or she doesn’t like fiction.

Eurocentrism in publishing continues to determine what is read by a global audience when it comes to Anglophone literatures. Who are some of the South African writers that have not yet received due attention, in your opinion?

Hmmm, that’s a tricky question. I tend to think that, in the long run, writers who are worth noticing do get noticed. But it can take a long while and no doubt injustices occur. I’ll limit myself to that reply and refrain from naming anybody, which is fair, because I’m woefully under read in South African literature anyway.

What are you working on next?

A collection of short stories. Long overdue by now, but the Booker is to blame for that.

Simar Bhasin is an independent journalist.