The winner is ... A short story with a long shadow

31 May 2016 - 10:11 By ANDILE NDLOVU

One of the five writers shortlisted for the 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing is Capetonian writer, photographer and filmmaker Lidudumalingani Mqombothi . Mqombothi's short story, Memories We Lost, examines a young girl's mental illness and its effects on her younger sister, their family and the community they inhabit.Reading the short story, one can't help but feel some sort of indignation towards the adults, who have all treated the young lady as a faulty appliance who needs fixing, instead of loving her. Was that one of your aims?The idea was not necessarily to coerce the judgment of the reader against any of the characters in the story. Any judgment passed, any side picked is purely that of the reader. Speaking to other readers, [their] judgment swings between the girls and their mother.The differences between the two generations interested me - their different ways of acquiring knowledge, ways of living, beliefs. It is easy for people to make the distinction about traditional and modern and what is good and not good. For me, the distinction is not as easy.Is this an excerpt from an eventual novel we should expect in the future?For now, it is only a short story. I am currently at work on other things with the hope that one grows into a novel and the other into a non-fiction book.How close are you to the story? - I read you said you were fascinated by mental illness and have experienced its impact on your extended family. Where did the initial idea for the story come from?The story was not necessarily a result of one incident. It was a combination of things, conversations with friends, texts and visuals that suddenly were in my radar, memories of extended family, and reflections on how mental illness is dealt with and spoken about in the villages. There is not a specific case that the story is linked to. It borrows elements from various cases, and then distorts the details, so that by the time I put it down on paper, the cases it drew from were only the topic and not the details, text, visuals that might have partly planted the idea.Do you think we're in denial as a black people about mental illness ?I do not think that we are in denial. We know most of the time what is going on, and we want to genuinely help where we can but I think that the way black communities speak and deal with mental illnesses, from depression to schizophrenia, can be more detrimental than they are helpful. This, I should add, is not something unique to black communities; it exists all around.Would you regard this as a breakout moment - being nominated for the Caine Prize?The concept of "breakout moment" needs to be taken apart and put together again. It isolates a single event that is a result of all the work that came before it; an event that, if it were not for the events before it, would not have occurred.Has there been a better time to be a writer from this continent?I do not remember a time when African literature took a sabbatical. There has always been, if one is interested, something going on, new writers publishing, old writers publishing, new literature magazines being started. For me it has always been an exciting time but it can always get better.Tope Folarin is again shortlisted - do you honestly believe former winners should be considered?That depends on what the Caine Prize's purpose is and what it is meant to do for African literature. If we can unpack that then we can maybe have an answer to that question.What are you reading, right now?I am currently reading The Other City by Stephen Watson, a selection of poems and Fan Wu's Beautiful As Yesterday.The winner will be announced on July 4 in Oxford, UK...

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