Zakes Mda’s Black Diamond Launched at Boekehuis

November 26th, 2009 by Tracey

The Boekehuis conversation between Zakes Mda and Andries Oliphant, about Mda’s new novel Black Diamond, was an intimate, intriguing and erudite event. Proceedings began outside where guests got the opportunity to converse with the author while sipping their wine and munching on fresh strawberries and asparagus.

The formal proceedings brought guests into the heart of the bookshop, where they were drawn into a chat that took up politics, the post-struggle prosperity – for some but not all – and the technical and aesthetic aspects of Mda’s literary style.

Oliphant gave a brief history of Mda’s fascinating life and impressive literary achievements, plus a synopsis of the book itself. He said, “It is an exhilarating piece of fiction, the narrative sequencing is so well timed, the satirical force is so broad. The force of humour becomes subversive and critical and departs from the tradition of protest.”

Rather than expostulating at length on his work, Mda opened the floor to questions from the guests. Siyabulela Botha asked what inspired him to write this particular novel. Mda said, “This novel is the result of the success of my previous novel, Cion, in the United States.” Mda wrote a script on aeroplanes and in hotel rooms during his stateside book tour for that work – a screenplay inspired by an article about a magistrate who had been terrorised by some gangsters that she had convicted. The filmmaker who commissioned it was nowhere to be found when it was completed, so Mda decided, in his own words, “that I can’t let such a good story go to waste and I adapted it to a medium that didn’t need a producer, a director, a designer – and I always thank Thabang for disappearing, or there would no novel!”

Mda spoke about his optimism for South Africa: we don’t deify our leaders and civic action remains robust; people are vocal in their criticism of the ruling party. The author said the fact that SA has neither “managed democracy plus wholesale oppression,” like in the former Soviet Union, nor the level of complacency toward corruption and greed that obtains in the US, made for good odds on a society that, ultimately, was just.

Oliphant asked Mda to speak about the games he was playing, inside Black Diamond, with, for instance, food and cats as props – but Mda refused, saying that it was Oliphant’s job to interpret the work. But he did address his general approach to contructing a novel: “I don’t begin with the issues, most of my novels are informed by the place, the setting, then my next question is what sort of characters would live in such a place and then I begin to construct them.”

The second Johannesburg event for Black Diamond is tonight in Hyde Park.

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