Sunday Times Literary Awards recognise and celebrate both fact and fiction in SA writing

FICTION

Criteria:

The winner should be a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.

The Bitterness of Olives by Andrew Brown (Karavan Press)

Written before the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip on October 7, Brown’s latest novel is set against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A retired detective in Tel Aviv and a Palestinian doctor in Gaza with a shared past must resolve their differences to investigate a murder. 

Judges said: A harrowing account of a moment of strife, beautifully told. The author, endowed with vivid imagination coupled with acumen and erudition, deftly immerses the reader in a brutal and bewildering landscape. A wholly sublime narrative, this novel is contemporaneous, daring, complex and aesthetically pleasing.

Andrew Brown on the genesis of his book:

The Bitterness of Olives was intended to be an exploration of the chasms that open up between people whose resonances are in truth far greater than their perceived differences. The book was published just weeks before the Hamas incursion of October 2023 and the ensuing genocidal response. It seems unbelievable now, but when I wrote the book it was with a sense of concern that the plight of Palestinians trapped in Gaza was being forgotten by the world, as increasing numbers of Arab states lined up to open relations with Israel.

Now the gulf of antagonism could not seem deeper, the bridges more tenuous, the situation of innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank more dire. The message of The Bitterness of Olives was of a quietly spoken optimism, the possibility of mending that which has been broken, slowly drawing the bitterness out from the fruit. That message should be timeless, and should never be sullied by cynicism or undermined by fatigue, but truly today peace and justice feel further from our grasp than ever before. The hope lies ultimately in us, in the individuals — as the novel relates through its characters — and not in institutions of power that appear hell-bent on keeping the world in a perpetual state of war.

My own hope is that The Bitterness of Olives has not been overtaken by the unfolding tragedy, and that it can still provide a relevant context, albeit in the form of fiction, and an alternative narrative to a fatalistic submission to brutality and fear. 

EXTRACT:

This has been his first Pesach alone. Loneliness makes him pensive. Maudlin perhaps. The festival seems to have shrunk to the barest resemblance of its intended form, as has much else in his life. In his case, the practicalities of celebration were reduced to a single piece of matzah, buttered and broken into pieces. Crisp and brittle. Like the memories he gripped, only to have them flake and crumble between his grasping fingers.

He sat at his kitchen side table and smeared chopped liver, scooped from a small tub from the delicatessen, on the buttered pieces. The taste was different, insipid, but maybe it was his mood and not the maker’s shortcoming. One piece of matzah was enough for him. He folded the top of the plastic sleeve and pegged it, but the contents would be stale within days. It is the inherent lifespan of the thing.

He was not sure if he had a determinable lifespan of his own. Rahel’s certainly came as a surprise. And age does not reduce life to understandable quotients, nor does it seem to bring wisdom in its wrinkled wake. Rather, like the sun on a drought-stricken olive tree, it wilts and sucks and burns until nothing but the stump of reminiscence is left behind. A reminder that something grand might once have stood there, but is no more. The charred trunk after the fire has passed by. Cold now, ringed only by soft ash like grey snow.

The first Seder was a few nights ago now, but it passed unmarked in their home. He spent the evening listening to music. Bach’s violin concertos were among his favourite pieces, the dichotomy between the soloist and the orchestra, the single voice juxtaposed against the rabble, the purity of the individual against the power of the mob. It was difficult to know whether it was revolutionary or quite the con­trary — this emphasis on the personal raging against the general. Are we to be governed by the opinions of others, or can we each stand firm? It was this tension in the music that he enjoyed, the anxiety as to who may triumph. For victory is never certain, even in music heard many times before.

And certainty was surely the poison of the world. If you thought you knew the outcome, why bother to undertake the journey at all? Conviction was the absence of thought. The dearth of alternate perspective. Truth, on the other hand, was ambivalent, he found. Though rarely gentle, it was elusive and precious. Once captured, it must be held in the palm of two hands, protected as if in prayer, coloured like butterfly wings that can at any moment be buffeted by bluster.

Not that he believed in prayer.

But he was tired of the bustle of opinion. Viewpoints not shared or debated, but rather foisted by one upon the other. Conversing had become a unilateral act.

In his life’s work, certainty was always the danger. For any detec­tive, assumption could lead to disaster. And real progress was made through thought that was complex. Thought that could hold differ­ent positions at once, like scaffolding that builds a spire. Or a pyre.

Ambivalence was not weakness; it remained our one genuine strength. And increasingly, it came to define his life, and to be absent in his countrymen’s thoughts. Here, they fought like cuckolded men over the corpse of their mistress.

There was much we should be uncertain about.

His Pesach reveries were disturbed by a strange phone call. Even before he knew that it was Khalid, he had grasped that duality. He was lonely, but he did not wish to be disturbed. He was in pain, but he did not wish for it to be eased. He was appalled by the squalor of his unchanged bed, yet he would not tolerate fresh linen. He was hungry, but had no desire to eat. He was imprisoned in their home, but could not bear to open the door. Desperate for contact, yet angry that someone had presumed to dial his number.

And then finally, when he lifted the receiver to his ear, he heard Khalid’s voice. Emotion caught his breath, and he coughed aloud from ... what? Pain and anger, yes, he could feel that still. But also regret.

Not that he would let the bastard know.

People would ask him ... What was he thinking, if he had a wide circle of friends concerned about his relationship with an Arab ... No, Rahel would ask him: ‘Why can you not be friends anymore?’

It was the story of his country, he supposed. Perhaps they could have been friends. Perhaps they were once. The reasons were com­plex, full of feeling, disappointment, resentment. And, of course, betrayal.

This was the Middle East after all.

On the telephone, Khalid said he needed his help. Only his help.

Khalid also said that he knew Avi Dahan was the last person on earth who would come to his aid.

Ah, but that was what drew him in. That dichotomy — the parted butterfly wings held in the palms of two hands.

NON-FICTION

Criteria:

The winner should demonstrate the illumination of truthfulness, especially those forms of it that are new, delicate, unfashionable and fly in the face of power; compassion; elegance of writing; and intellectual and moral integrity.

Place: South African Literary Journeys by Justin Fox (Umuzi)

Fox writes: “The idea behind Place was to embark on a series of journeys around South Africa using literary works instead of maps to guide me. While it is rewarding to engage with landscape through the pages of great books, it’s even better to put boots on the ground, text in hand, and experience first-hand something of the authors’ relationships with place, to hear the voices of their characters in situ.”

Judges said: A travelogue, in which the author’s scholarship sits lightly upon his shoulders, as Fox pens a love letter to this land by retracing the steps of some of our most celebrated authors, as he takes stock of their influence on him — and us.

We ask Justin Fox a few questions about Place:

How did the idea of the book come about? What led you on this journey?

In the winter of 2008, I visited the Marico to write an article about the places where Herman Charles Bosman’s short stories are set. I wanted to see how much remained of the world inhabited by his main character, Oom Schalk Lourens. That journey provided the spark ... and got me thinking about conducting a series of journeys around South Africa to visit the places of great books and viewing the landscape through the eyes of the authors and their characters. That led me to the eastern Karoo of Olive Schreiner, the Lowveld of Sir Percy FitzPatrick, the Waterberg of Eugène Marais, the Moordenaars Karoo of JM Coetzee, the Wild Coast of Zakes Mda, and the Cederberg of Stephen Watson.

You wrote that this took about 14 years to complete. How did you decide which areas of South Africa to focus on, and which authors to focus on? How did you keep notes?

First, I wanted to focus on books that celebrated the South African landscape in evocative and powerful ways, and I wanted most of the works to be “classics”, or at least well known to a wide audience. Then I also wanted to cover as many diverse landscapes and regions as possible. My career as a travel journalist means I keep a detailed, handwritten diary whenever I travel. I take a lot of photographs too, some of them magazine-style with publication in mind, but most of them as a form of notetaking, an aide-memoire to help with the writing.

What was the most difficult part of writing the book?

The writing of it. I love the research — being out on the open road with a pen, notepad, camera and suitcase full of books, spending days or even weeks away from home chasing the story. And I also enjoy the editing process, once I have a rough manuscript in the bag. But the writing never gets any easier: that terrible blank computer screen waiting for me each morning like a salivating predator.

Your research is exhaustive. How did you prevent it from overwhelming the narrative? Was there quite a bit you left out of the book?

I have a background in academia and did a bit of teaching at UCT, so I do enjoy research, spending a lot of time in libraries and archives. But my journalistic training has taught me to wear the research lightly, to make sure the writing remains engaging and accessible, something academic writing often struggles with. I wanted Place to appeal to a broad readership. During the editing process (and a lot of the book was cut), whenever there was a choice between serious scholarship or entertaining travel writing, I chose to retain the latter.

In what way do you think the book “illuminates truthfulness”?

A literature of place is one that cherishes particular locales and conveys the spirit of place in such a way that should make their desecration unthinkable. All the books I deal with offer an implicit, at times explicit, appeal to conservation of the land — its flora and fauna. Also, each text is in its own right a great work of South African literature. And all great art, by its very nature, is emblematic of truth.

What impression do you want readers to take away after reading Place?

An appreciation for the power of literature to enrich our experience of the land. I hope my book inspires people to go back and read these great works of literature and, through them, gain a greater appreciation of landscape and, ultimately, instil in them a determination to conserve what we still have. Many of the landscapes celebrated in my book — wild places, old places, places of character and depth — are menaced by the multiple threats of development, commercialisation, greed, corruption, crime and neglect — forces that disconnect people from the environments they hold dear. Such places must be saved.