1
00:00:06,970 --> 00:00:17,390
Narrative futures. How did the stories we tell shape how we think about the future, the present and the past?

2
00:00:17,390 --> 00:00:27,330
What is speculation for? And how might we construct better narratives for a better future?

3
00:00:27,330 --> 00:00:41,280
Narrative Futures is a podcast coming to you from Futures Thinking, a research network housed in the Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities.

4
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:47,850
My name is Chelsea Haith, I'm a doctoral researcher in the faculty of English here at the University of Oxford.

5
00:00:47,850 --> 00:00:54,780
This podcast was recorded entirely during lockdown under the working from home conditions that that entails.

6
00:00:54,780 --> 00:00:57,330
It's also an interactive podcast.

7
00:00:57,330 --> 00:01:06,120
Each episode features an interview followed by two prompts or writing exercises designed by novelist and creative writing tutor Louis Greenberg.

8
00:01:06,120 --> 00:01:10,890
We invite you to share your responses to these with us via email at Fut.

9
00:01:10,890 --> 00:01:14,730
Thinking at Torch Dot X Dicy UK.

10
00:01:14,730 --> 00:01:21,150
We'll share these on the blog, where you'll also be able to find the full transcript of each episode with links to the books,

11
00:01:21,150 --> 00:01:26,820
writers and ideas that we discuss. As the world's so radically changes,

12
00:01:26,820 --> 00:01:39,930
we hope these conversations and ideas give you insight and inspiration to think about how else we might live and create collectively going forward.

13
00:01:39,930 --> 00:01:43,770
In this first episode, I chat to Lauren Bugis about subjective reading,

14
00:01:43,770 --> 00:01:49,530
community action and how storytelling goes some way to challenging capital structures.

15
00:01:49,530 --> 00:01:57,930
Lauren Beukes is the multi award winning author of five novels, including The Shining Girls, Sioux City and After Land.

16
00:01:57,930 --> 00:02:03,360
In the last decade, she has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the University of Johannesburg PRISE.

17
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:08,640
The Kitchen's Red Tentacle. The August Alef Prise Arty Thriller of the Year.

18
00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:15,650
And the prestigious Mikoto Award for Women in the Creative Arts from South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture.

19
00:02:15,650 --> 00:02:24,570
Because his work has been translated into 24 languages and I work in other media, including writing, comics, television and journalism,

20
00:02:24,570 --> 00:02:33,540
have under awards such as the best LGBTI film at the Atlanta Black Film Festival and a spot in the New York Times bestseller lists.

21
00:02:33,540 --> 00:02:35,460
Her third novel, The Shining Girls,

22
00:02:35,460 --> 00:02:44,010
is currently in development as a major TV series starring Elisabeth Moss and her fifth and most recent novel, After Land, published in 2020.

23
00:02:44,010 --> 00:02:50,150
Asks what would happen if a pandemic wiped out ninety nine point nine percent of the male population?

24
00:02:50,150 --> 00:02:58,920
Biggs is not prescient, of course, but she pays careful and critical attention to the world and is deeply invested in social justice movements.

25
00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:06,110
What follows now is an extract from Zoo City. Her second novel, following, which will launch straight into the interview.

26
00:03:06,110 --> 00:03:18,090
Enjoy. In Zoo City, it's impolite to ask.

27
00:03:18,090 --> 00:03:24,870
Morning light. The cell phone colour of the mind dumb seeps across Johannesburg, skyline and seers through my window.

28
00:03:24,870 --> 00:03:32,070
My own personal bat signal or a reminder that I really need to get curtains shielding my eyes.

29
00:03:32,070 --> 00:03:38,460
Morning has broken and there is no picking up the pieces. I yank back the sheets and peel out of bed.

30
00:03:38,460 --> 00:03:45,600
Then why does it so much as star with only as callused feet sticking out from under the duvet like knots of driftwood?

31
00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:54,380
Feed like that, they tell a story. They say he walked all the way from Kinshasa with his mongoose strapped to his chest.

32
00:03:54,380 --> 00:03:58,640
The mongoose in question is curled up like a furry comment on my laptop.

33
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:05,150
The glow of the LCD throbbing under his nose like he doesn't know my computer is out of bounds.

34
00:04:05,150 --> 00:04:12,260
Let's just say I'm precious about my work. Let's just say it's not entirely legal.

35
00:04:12,260 --> 00:04:18,310
I take hold of the laptop, but I decide and gently tilt it over the edge of my desk at 30 degrees.

36
00:04:18,310 --> 00:04:25,660
The mongoose starts sliding down the front of the laptop. He waits to the start, tikki tavi claws scrabbling for purchase.

37
00:04:25,660 --> 00:04:35,000
As he starts to fall, he can talk to air a man, just land feetfirst hunching his stripy shoulders, he hisses at me, teeth bared his back.

38
00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:39,000
The mothers realises he has urgent flights to attend to.

39
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:44,250
Leaving the Mungo's to scrawl that its flag, a duck under one of the loops of rope hanging from the ceiling.

40
00:04:44,250 --> 00:04:52,150
The closest I can get to providing authentic Amazon jungle vines and a pad over the rotten linoleum to the cupboard.

41
00:04:52,150 --> 00:05:00,340
Calling it a cupboard is a tad optimistic, like calling this dank room with its precariously canted floor and intermittent plumbing.

42
00:05:00,340 --> 00:05:03,400
An apartment is optimistic.

43
00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:12,010
The cupboard is not much more than an open box with a piece of fabric pinned across it to keep the dust off my clothes and Sloss of course.

44
00:05:12,010 --> 00:05:20,950
As I pull back, the gouty sunflower friend sluffed blinks up at me sleepily from his roost like a misshapen fur coat between the wire hangers.

45
00:05:20,950 --> 00:05:26,770
He's not good at mornings. There's a massive reak that clings to his fur and his claws.

46
00:05:26,770 --> 00:05:33,080
But it's earthy and clean compared to the choke of stewing garbage and black mould flooding up the stairwell.

47
00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:36,670
Elision Heights was condemned years ago.

48
00:05:36,670 --> 00:05:42,410
Are each person to pull out of vintage Navy dress with a white collar matched up with jeans and slops and finish off

49
00:05:42,410 --> 00:05:49,030
with a lime green scarf over the little dreadlock twist that conveniently hide the mangled wreckage of my left ear?

50
00:05:49,030 --> 00:05:56,680
Let's call it race. Kelly, does Sailor Moon. This is not so much a comment on my style as a comment on my budget.

51
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:01,070
I was always more of an outrageously expensive indie boutique kind of girl.

52
00:06:01,070 --> 00:06:05,860
But that was F.L. former life. Come on, buddy.

53
00:06:05,860 --> 00:06:14,670
I said, Asla, do want to keep the clients waiting. Sluffed gives a shops sneeze of disapproval and extends his long downy arms.

54
00:06:14,670 --> 00:06:19,230
Clambers onto my back. Fussing and shifting before he finally settles.

55
00:06:19,230 --> 00:06:23,580
I used to get impatient, but this has become an old routine for the pair of us.

56
00:06:23,580 --> 00:06:30,000
It's because I haven't had my caffeine fix yet that it takes a little while for the repetitive screeching sound to penetrate.

57
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:34,550
The Mungo's is pulling at the front door with a single minded devotion.

58
00:06:34,550 --> 00:06:40,130
I oblige, shunting back the double deadbolt and clicking open the padlock, which is engraved with magic,

59
00:06:40,130 --> 00:06:46,330
supposedly designed to keep out those with a shabby foot slipping through locked doors.

60
00:06:46,330 --> 00:06:52,320
At the first crack, amongst his nudges up to my ankles and trots down the passage towards the communalist tray,

61
00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:59,330
it's easy to find it's the smelliest place in the building. You should really get a cat flap.

62
00:06:59,330 --> 00:07:02,150
Then why is Weigert lost, propped up on one elbow,

63
00:07:02,150 --> 00:07:09,660
squinting at me from under the shade of his fingers because the glare bouncing off Punti tower has shifted across to his side of the bed.

64
00:07:09,660 --> 00:07:15,030
Why I say propping the door up with my foot for the mongooses imminent return.

65
00:07:15,030 --> 00:07:22,220
You moving in? Is that an invitation? Don't get comfortable, is all I'm saying.

66
00:07:22,220 --> 00:07:27,090
But is that all you're saying? And don't get smart either.

67
00:07:27,090 --> 00:07:32,680
Don't worry, Sherry, none. Guy, your bed is far too love for you to get comfortable.

68
00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:37,540
Ben was stretches lazily revealing the map worth of scars over his shoulders.

69
00:07:37,540 --> 00:07:41,840
The plastic Plastiki burned skin that runs down his throat in his chest.

70
00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:54,200
He only ever calls me my love in Mangala, which makes it easier to disregard.

71
00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:59,510
Lauren, I love those opening lines of those opening pages of Zoo City,

72
00:07:59,510 --> 00:08:05,600
the moment where you evoke the mind domes of Johannesburg and the light shining off Ponti Tower.

73
00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:10,520
And I think one of the most beautiful things about Zoo City and the kind of play with genre that

74
00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:16,280
that novel does is this sort of quality of existential proximity that the world of the novel is,

75
00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:19,310
as we know it, recognisable, but not quite.

76
00:08:19,310 --> 00:08:25,970
And that's the first kind of the first moments of the animals of mongoose and sloth and the human interaction with them.

77
00:08:25,970 --> 00:08:32,330
And I wanted to kind of talk about what your impetus is to write worlds that are, shall we say, skewed.

78
00:08:32,330 --> 00:08:37,780
I think it's like a distorting mirror that we can use to see things more clearly.

79
00:08:37,780 --> 00:08:41,840
Mm hmm. Yeah. I can take this slight shift in reality.

80
00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:45,860
So it's still recognisable. And and it still resonates.

81
00:08:45,860 --> 00:08:53,600
But just putting a weird twist on things allows me to talk about big issues in a way that hopefully feels

82
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:59,690
fresh and interesting and can engage people in a way that is a straight crime novel or strait's kind of,

83
00:08:59,690 --> 00:09:03,410
you know, social novel wouldn't necessarily. Absolutely.

84
00:09:03,410 --> 00:09:09,500
I think there's a trend towards kind of using dystopian elements or fantasy elements in what are

85
00:09:09,500 --> 00:09:14,810
otherwise kind of critical realist texts to think through kind of socio political problems.

86
00:09:14,810 --> 00:09:23,180
And your novels do that really brilliantly. Thank you. Johannesburg is so carefully described in ZEW City as Cape Town in Moxey Land,

87
00:09:23,180 --> 00:09:28,400
Chicago and Shining Girls, Detroit and Broken Monsters, and then at the end of often land Miami.

88
00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:36,110
And you do extraordinarily careful research for all of your novels, I think really capturing much of the essence of the cities in which they are set.

89
00:09:36,110 --> 00:09:40,190
But what is it about those cities that are particularly evocative for you?

90
00:09:40,190 --> 00:09:44,630
I think. I mean, Cape Town's obviously where I've lived for the last 20 years,

91
00:09:44,630 --> 00:09:50,400
although I grew up in Johannesburg, so that's why I'm kind of myself and was reflected in Cape Town.

92
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:57,520
But I think Johannesburg is kind of my. The city of my heart.

93
00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:03,370
If I had an animal, it would be Johannesburg and Detroit and Chicago felt very familiar in that way.

94
00:10:03,370 --> 00:10:10,240
That very kind of vital alive, but also just.

95
00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:17,590
Desperate in so many ways and crime ridden and corruption saturated and suffocated and

96
00:10:17,590 --> 00:10:21,250
really it allowed me to kind of play with these themes that I'm really interested in,

97
00:10:21,250 --> 00:10:32,420
in which is intersectionality and oppression across race and gender and sexuality and class of hos and.

98
00:10:32,420 --> 00:10:39,890
Both Chicago and Detroit are kind of shadow cities of Johannesburg for me in my writing and Hillbrow in particular in Detroit,

99
00:10:39,890 --> 00:10:46,760
because Detroit is seen as this very deeply broken place. And but actually, when I was there, there was so much vitality.

100
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:48,300
The arts scene was exploding.

101
00:10:48,300 --> 00:10:57,990
And I think there is definitely a friction which occurs, which obviously J.G. Ballard talks about a lot between arts and.

102
00:10:57,990 --> 00:11:04,540
Very dark times or desperation or brokenness.

103
00:11:04,540 --> 00:11:10,210
And a lot of really interesting autists come out of that friction. So I think that's what kind of spoke to me about Detroit with Miami.

104
00:11:10,210 --> 00:11:16,040
It just felt like somewhere. That I haven't seen a lot of in a really interesting way.

105
00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:22,640
I had thought about setting the kind of denominate in New York, but I've seen you so many times and it's really boring,

106
00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:28,220
even though there are aspects to New York which are very real and strange and interesting

107
00:11:28,220 --> 00:11:34,130
and gritty and much more texture of the city that we don't see depicted a lot.

108
00:11:34,130 --> 00:11:36,650
But I just I just couldn't do it. I just didn't want to write about New York.

109
00:11:36,650 --> 00:11:42,650
And I felt like New Yorkers should write about that kind of, you know, sub aspect in a more interesting way.

110
00:11:42,650 --> 00:11:49,040
For me, it was Miami just seemed like an electric place. But also this really interesting place, again, with crime and corruption,

111
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:54,140
but also this vitality and this kind of brightness and this very dark shadow self,

112
00:11:54,140 --> 00:12:01,220
but also a lot of kind of mixed race politics and vibrancy and just just a very kind of alive, vital city.

113
00:12:01,220 --> 00:12:05,570
It really appeals me. And it causes great art scene there with Miami Art Basel.

114
00:12:05,570 --> 00:12:10,040
And yeah, I can never resist. Your dad seemed. Yeah, absolutely.

115
00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:15,590
I completely identify with that sense of Johannesburg as this kind of this hot city and the vibrancy of the place.

116
00:12:15,590 --> 00:12:23,150
You can never really get away from it. And that's one of the reasons I So Loves the City was one of the first novels that Johannesburg featured.

117
00:12:23,150 --> 00:12:29,390
And for me, I'm alongside. Welcome to our Hillbrow. I want to compare an obvious one as other Slavitt, his novels.

118
00:12:29,390 --> 00:12:38,330
I want to talk a little bit about the engagement with horror and goal that a lot of your novels do and also, of course, your graphic novel work.

119
00:12:38,330 --> 00:12:43,460
I'm thinking particularly about broken months as an awful land with regards to a kind of horror and go.

120
00:12:43,460 --> 00:12:48,080
But these often reference art and film. And I was thinking about speculation,

121
00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:56,180
what you've just said now about the dark times evoking really interesting art and thinking about how things might otherwise be,

122
00:12:56,180 --> 00:12:59,420
which I think is a huge kind of part of the work that you do,

123
00:12:59,420 --> 00:13:05,420
articulating the way things might otherwise be, kind of asking always, what if I wanted to ask you,

124
00:13:05,420 --> 00:13:14,260
what do you think each of these forms sort of art, literature and film bring to the table politically in their asking of what if?

125
00:13:14,260 --> 00:13:16,570
I was talking to my 11 year old daughter about this the other day,

126
00:13:16,570 --> 00:13:26,710
and it's it's not just opposable thumbs or our kind of overactive, deeply anxious brains that make us separate from other animals.

127
00:13:26,710 --> 00:13:30,490
I think we're the because because some other animals have four forms of language.

128
00:13:30,490 --> 00:13:32,760
But as far as I know, we're the only storytelling.

129
00:13:32,760 --> 00:13:37,200
And an odd is a kind of a story because it's an interaction between what's happening in you and what you're seeing.

130
00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:42,250
And it's you're kind of creating meaning. So all of these things allow us to create meaning.

131
00:13:42,250 --> 00:13:47,630
And we live in a deeply cruel and senseless and meaningless world.

132
00:13:47,630 --> 00:13:53,360
We're just terrible things happen all the time outside of global pandemics and, you know,

133
00:13:53,360 --> 00:14:00,650
Black Lives Matter protest marches and the way that's being ruthlessly suppressed and people

134
00:14:00,650 --> 00:14:06,440
being killed in South Africa and gender based violence or you're in America by the police.

135
00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:11,420
And it's just I think it gives us a light. It gives us a light in the darkness.

136
00:14:11,420 --> 00:14:17,720
It gives us a way of imagining another world, of engaging with another world, of finding some meaning for ourselves.

137
00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:19,320
And that's not necessarily a global meaning.

138
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:26,300
I think that's why arts and literature and film is so very interesting, because it's how it's such a subjective process.

139
00:14:26,300 --> 00:14:31,820
It's how we receive it. It's how we bring it into ourselves and make that meaning inside ourselves.

140
00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:38,700
Which is why I often talk about. How books are a conversation between the reader and the books.

141
00:14:38,700 --> 00:14:45,630
And it's not a conversation between the reader and the author, because once St John's world, it actually has nothing to do with me anymore.

142
00:14:45,630 --> 00:14:50,880
It's entirely the resonances which happen inside your own head when you're reading it.

143
00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:58,440
And I think that's what makes it so magical. Yeah, that that sense of magic and the kind of co creation, lots of narrative suggests.

144
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:05,130
Write about that and talk about that idea. And it's kind of it's interesting when people label authors like yourself,

145
00:15:05,130 --> 00:15:09,660
like Margaret Atwood does, as prophets or somehow prescient of the contemporary period.

146
00:15:09,660 --> 00:15:13,140
Right. And, you know, as you say, your book goes out to the world.

147
00:15:13,140 --> 00:15:21,030
And then there's a moment and after land where coal is thinking about violence in America and violence in South Africa and people commenting on,

148
00:15:21,030 --> 00:15:26,130
well, how can you live in Johannesburg? And she said, how can you live here? Referring to America?

149
00:15:26,130 --> 00:15:35,880
And there's a line in her black kids get shot in America. And then and I'm reading that while Black Lives Matter is happening,

150
00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:43,560
and while the protests against the awful murder of George Floyd are taking place and and my

151
00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:50,750
engagement with a novel that you wrote in the last year is so charged by my experience of,

152
00:15:50,750 --> 00:15:54,820
you know, of witnessing these these atrocities, obviously online.

153
00:15:54,820 --> 00:16:06,210
I mean, how do you respond when people talk about this kind of profit aspect of being a writer who responds so vividly and so carefully to,

154
00:16:06,210 --> 00:16:06,690
as you say,

155
00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:17,430
problems of gender based violence in South Africa, police violence in in the states and patriarchy and hierarchical power structures generally?

156
00:16:17,430 --> 00:16:24,480
I think. I mean, obviously, I'm not a prophet. I do wish I did patented some stuff in Moxey land.

157
00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:30,780
But it's just it's looking at society. It's really just being kind of very sensitive to what is happening in our current moment, because,

158
00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:37,590
of course, police killings and shooting black kids in America has been going on for years.

159
00:16:37,590 --> 00:16:39,720
So it's not it's not prophetic for me to say that.

160
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:45,990
It's it's you know, that was when I started writing this book five years ago, that that was absolutely what was happening already.

161
00:16:45,990 --> 00:16:51,930
And it's just being aware of that. It's kind of like tugging on a thread and watching how things unravel and then weaving in and something else.

162
00:16:51,930 --> 00:16:56,370
So, you know, it's these self-evident truths of contemporary life. Absolutely.

163
00:16:56,370 --> 00:17:05,010
You tap into it so well. Yeah. And I think as a writer or an artist or creative, you are very, very sensitive and attuned to those things.

164
00:17:05,010 --> 00:17:10,050
And I think in my daily life, it's something which is really important to me. And of course, it's going to leak through in my writing.

165
00:17:10,050 --> 00:17:18,060
And I think, you know, I've spoken about this before, about having grown up under the apartheid state in South Africa and having been so privileged

166
00:17:18,060 --> 00:17:24,750
and having grown up with in this utopia for white people with such a terrible cost,

167
00:17:24,750 --> 00:17:35,980
with, you know, assassination hit squads and torture units and people being disappeared and going into exile and.

168
00:17:35,980 --> 00:17:44,840
Just the most horrifying acts. It's really made me socially aware and and I really want to kind of put that through and I want to play out those

169
00:17:44,840 --> 00:17:53,900
things in my novels and and really kind of use them as a way of examining that and trying to imagine something else.

170
00:17:53,900 --> 00:17:54,920
And, of course, you know,

171
00:17:54,920 --> 00:18:04,320
as I've also spoken about with The Shining Girls and my own personal experience with a young woman I knew who was murdered by her boyfriend.

172
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:11,660
At least in fiction, you can have justice. And that's not the way it works in the real world.

173
00:18:11,660 --> 00:18:17,270
That's really interesting that you talk about having justice or creating a sense of justice.

174
00:18:17,270 --> 00:18:26,150
I suppose the reader will will experience that, particularly at the at the end of off the land and the the idea that you're

175
00:18:26,150 --> 00:18:32,690
kind of working from a place of having of having experienced to an atrocious,

176
00:18:32,690 --> 00:18:40,190
as you say, like utopian utopia, kind of in the same senses, you know, Stalin ism was a kind of utopia there.

177
00:18:40,190 --> 00:18:50,180
And I think that that invocation of of of justice in a dystopian world as a utopian impulses, Frederick Jamieson theorise it,

178
00:18:50,180 --> 00:18:57,620
I think is is quite profound and quite there is something about it for the kind of contemporary moment

179
00:18:57,620 --> 00:19:04,640
of literature that sort of critical realist styles seem to seem to be drawn to seem to evoke really,

180
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:11,660
really interestingly. Is there anything that you are kind of looking at or reading or thinking about that you think is particularly

181
00:19:11,660 --> 00:19:18,110
important right now with regards to this kind of thinking through alternative justices or justice,

182
00:19:18,110 --> 00:19:23,420
through fiction? And how else we might imagine the present, but also the future?

183
00:19:23,420 --> 00:19:27,350
I found actually listen to the audio book this couple of years ago when I was when I was

184
00:19:27,350 --> 00:19:33,620
writing after land and doing research on society's legal pots and what does happen in crisis.

185
00:19:33,620 --> 00:19:40,440
And Sabeg consultant's book, A Paradise Built in Hell, which really kind of explores.

186
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:47,340
How so? Very often in times of crisis, people actually rally and they come together and yes, sometimes there is looting,

187
00:19:47,340 --> 00:19:58,680
but there is also community action and people starting soup kitchens and people creating housing and actually creating their own solutions.

188
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:01,110
And I'm not a libertarian and I'm not saying we should we don't need government.

189
00:20:01,110 --> 00:20:09,880
I think we need a strong, enforced, democratically elected government that is not corrupted by capitalism.

190
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:18,520
But with with, you know, like a lot of kind of ways to restrict corporations and proper taxation and all the rest of it.

191
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:21,880
But I do feel like there's a lot to be said for communities rising.

192
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:28,600
And it's been so inspiring to see what's been happening in Cape Town through, you know, honestly, just the beginning days of Korona,

193
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:31,930
because I think it is going to get a lot worse with the Community Action Network,

194
00:20:31,930 --> 00:20:36,220
that of formed especially in Cape Town, where like white communities.

195
00:20:36,220 --> 00:20:39,250
Well, majority white communities and kind of the nice suburbs.

196
00:20:39,250 --> 00:20:44,200
So Cape Town is still segregated across geographical lines because of the way the apartheid

197
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:49,920
government really ripped apart communities and physically removed people and shunted them out.

198
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:55,630
So like the Cape Flats, which is this kind of very barren and dusty marshland.

199
00:20:55,630 --> 00:21:02,590
But what's been so interesting is to see people in the suburbs really rallying to try and help people in the townships,

200
00:21:02,590 --> 00:21:05,350
which are typically poverty stricken.

201
00:21:05,350 --> 00:21:12,850
People are living in shacks and create ways of those communities kind of working together and Twyning up with the community.

202
00:21:12,850 --> 00:21:20,440
So the place I loved him was both his twinned with Swahili Chai, which is a neighbourhood of Kyly two, which is one of our biggest townships,

203
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:22,450
and seeing what the community needs,

204
00:21:22,450 --> 00:21:30,040
like creating like electricity vouchers or having fundraisers to buy people food or sandwiches and that kind of thing.

205
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,420
And I just I wish we'd had that before. I wish we'd had that kind of community engagement before.

206
00:21:34,420 --> 00:21:39,160
And that's why I think the Solnit's book is so very relevant and so interesting,

207
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:44,620
because we are capable of reaching out and we are capable of great compassion and that empathy.

208
00:21:44,620 --> 00:21:49,840
And major corporations in South Africa have donated a couple of billion. I think as I was up before.

209
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:55,840
And why weren't you paying your taxes before and why weren't we able to come to this level of compassion and engagement before?

210
00:21:55,840 --> 00:22:04,440
Why did we need a crisis for this to happen? I absolutely agree, that's kind of the sense that we were in crisis before this.

211
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:10,560
The status quo in South Africa is one of perpetual almost crisis sort of living on the edge all the time.

212
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:17,490
And, you know, very often bubbles over with, you know, instances of gender based violence, responses to that.

213
00:22:17,490 --> 00:22:21,690
I'm thinking here also of, you know, the Marikana massacre.

214
00:22:21,690 --> 00:22:31,470
And these these moments were where the press responds, where, yeah, you've got you've got major responses from across the.

215
00:22:31,470 --> 00:22:36,450
The very socially and class divided society of South Africa.

216
00:22:36,450 --> 00:22:41,790
And yet that is that is something that needs to be addressed perpetually.

217
00:22:41,790 --> 00:22:43,940
Yes. Absolutely. And it's just ongoing.

218
00:22:43,940 --> 00:22:49,330
And I think that's I think that's why we have been able to adapt to a crisis, because suddenly it feels urgent.

219
00:22:49,330 --> 00:22:55,190
And and it's one thing that we're fighting. And I think that's why apartheid's activism was really interesting,

220
00:22:55,190 --> 00:23:01,280
because you had a clear enemy and the enemy was the apartheid government and this racist, oppressive regime.

221
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:05,330
But if you look at inequality in South Africa and of course, we're one of the highest in the world,

222
00:23:05,330 --> 00:23:09,980
the Gini coefficient here, I believe, is the highest, although I've also heard that said about Brazil.

223
00:23:09,980 --> 00:23:15,950
And how do you what's the enemy there? It's capitalism. But of course, we all, like, profit from capitalism.

224
00:23:15,950 --> 00:23:21,980
And, you know, it's a system which we're all deeply, deeply and literally invested in.

225
00:23:21,980 --> 00:23:23,570
And I don't know. I don't know how to change that.

226
00:23:23,570 --> 00:23:28,880
And I think that's why the response to Covered 19 has been so interesting, because we suddenly have a clear enemy.

227
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:37,490
Is the enemy. Here's how to deal with it. It's not gender based violence. It's it's not these all these problems which have a deep societal.

228
00:23:37,490 --> 00:23:41,240
Rot and roots that you can't fix by throwing money at it.

229
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:45,200
You can't, like, donate a couple of billion and then be like, cool, we like, you know, build some field hospitals.

230
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:50,170
It's I don't know how to fix that kind of systemic stuff. And I think it's out after we've come so near to it.

231
00:23:50,170 --> 00:23:58,730
And I think the so the construction of the world and off the land is a really interesting avocation of how that systemic kind of

232
00:23:58,730 --> 00:24:07,170
power and how those systemic inequalities are so comfortable and how and how hard they are to work against and to restructure.

233
00:24:07,170 --> 00:24:14,240
So the world without man of the world run by women. And you've said before, you know, you said that only three years after 2020.

234
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:21,560
So 2023 and the choice to sustain the hierarchies and patriarchal structures isn't explicit and quite politically charged one.

235
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:26,960
And I think that that really that also that invokes that that kind of sense that it's it's so hard to

236
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:33,200
work against these systems because so many people benefit from them acknowledging those privileges.

237
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:38,070
But do you want to talk? Talk us through a little bit about the kind of the sense of a world run by women and the

238
00:24:38,070 --> 00:24:44,690
the the proximity to to the world that we know that you that you describe in off the land?

239
00:24:44,690 --> 00:24:49,430
Absolutely. I think there's a line in the book, which is that the patriarchy is very comfortable.

240
00:24:49,430 --> 00:24:55,610
Pair of shoes. You can just slip them on. And it was I was interested in like not having any kind of a far future where

241
00:24:55,610 --> 00:24:59,990
the men have died out and it's been this woman led society for centuries.

242
00:24:59,990 --> 00:25:03,620
I want to again parallel reality.

243
00:25:03,620 --> 00:25:09,770
It was really interesting talking to people when I was designing the book and thinking about, like what the world would look like.

244
00:25:09,770 --> 00:25:16,580
And even someone who is incredibly feminist, who's a leading scholar on gender based violence in South Africa was like,

245
00:25:16,580 --> 00:25:25,060
oh, I wonder what we'll do with the stadiums. And I said, well, maybe the women's teams would actually get to play.

246
00:25:25,060 --> 00:25:30,110
And this idea of like what being a woman is and of course, a big communal gardens. And that's what's also been really interesting about this.

247
00:25:30,110 --> 00:25:37,160
Community action networks in Cape Town is that the majority woman led and woman volunteers and woman involvement.

248
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:42,770
So, yes, of course, it's going to be that. But also women are people. And it seems like quite a radical idea.

249
00:25:42,770 --> 00:25:49,230
I always switch that around and be like feminism is the radical idea that men are people, too, and we expect you to act like it.

250
00:25:49,230 --> 00:25:55,510
We're just as capable of being corrupt, of being power hungry, of being losers, of being violent.

251
00:25:55,510 --> 00:26:02,570
But we're capable of atrocity just as easily. This kind of motherhood, GM is like that can also be justify terrible things.

252
00:26:02,570 --> 00:26:06,290
You know, speaking as a mom who would probably kill someone if they hurt my kid.

253
00:26:06,290 --> 00:26:15,080
Yeah. So. So it's just kind of exploring this idea of like kind of female fantasy in the system and how actually it will amandine tomorrow,

254
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:20,780
which I hope does not happen for the record. That's.

255
00:26:20,780 --> 00:26:25,720
We wouldn't we would struggle to, like, overthrow the existing systems.

256
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:31,760
Yeah, and I know I Harman, but he said it might have been maybe an arsehole, Glenn.

257
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:39,780
Octavia Butler, but somebody said something about how feudalism seemed like, yeah, it's the Gwen Gwen.

258
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:46,550
And maybe you like a place, I quote. But like how feudalism seemed like it would always be around and impossible to overthrow.

259
00:26:46,550 --> 00:26:51,290
But I just don't. I don't. And I know people say this in my capitalism that maybe we can imagine a way to overthrow it.

260
00:26:51,290 --> 00:26:56,180
I just don't know what that would look like and how. Well, I do know what that would look like.

261
00:26:56,180 --> 00:27:03,670
You know, more certainly more socialism, universal basic income. And I just don't know how we would get people to give up power to make that happen.

262
00:27:03,670 --> 00:27:10,400
Yeah. Your novels deal really well with this kind of the sense of shifting power and shifting world structures.

263
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:19,550
So I think that that kind of that storytelling goes some way to kind of reimagine what what would be necessary.

264
00:27:19,550 --> 00:27:22,080
Right. And off to Landers is a particularly interesting one.

265
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:30,990
It's it's really you know, it's deeply troubling that major shifts are usually caused by wars or plagues.

266
00:27:30,990 --> 00:27:39,680
You know, the feminism movement comes out of women working in factories, you know, in during the Second World War.

267
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,070
Obviously, that's that's kind of abrogated in white feminist narratives.

268
00:27:43,070 --> 00:27:51,390
Obviously, feminism, matriarchal societies were prevalent and dominance across the African continent in that period.

269
00:27:51,390 --> 00:27:54,840
And I'm sure the same is true of other societies there.

270
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:59,480
My context is, of course, Europe and Africa. And I think that there's yeah,

271
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:07,580
there's there's something really interesting in the kind of the the the push that I think is occurring at the moment in social justice movements

272
00:28:07,580 --> 00:28:17,630
towards how do we think about what the world off to this pandemic will look like and how do we how do we work together to reimagine that?

273
00:28:17,630 --> 00:28:23,690
Because it is a it is a mode of storytelling. We have to tell us selves a new story about the future.

274
00:28:23,690 --> 00:28:25,820
Absolutely. Definitely. And of course,

275
00:28:25,820 --> 00:28:35,300
the problem is that some people are telling themselves another story and pushing us further towards fascism and the far right and authoritarianism.

276
00:28:35,300 --> 00:28:42,800
You know, there's a strong history of woman being pushed back into kind of more traditionally feminine

277
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:48,260
roles of having to give up school and having to stay home and clean house in times of plague.

278
00:28:48,260 --> 00:28:54,010
And I think we saw that most recently during the Ebola outbreak where so I think

279
00:28:54,010 --> 00:28:57,050
says I don't have easy access with something I think was in the Atlantic,

280
00:28:57,050 --> 00:29:02,840
something like 70 percent of women who gave up their jobs to go back home and look after the

281
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:08,480
home and to feed their families and tend to the dying and the dead never went back to work.

282
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:14,000
And some girls never went back to school. And that's the other imagining memory frighten.

283
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:21,770
And I think maybe we need to have to imagine brighter and hotter. And then also act on this and to try and put things into my.

284
00:29:21,770 --> 00:29:26,360
But again, you know, our current system of government and democracy,

285
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:33,940
it really feels like we don't have individual voices except on Twitter where we can link maybe, you know, shame some racist.

286
00:29:33,940 --> 00:29:39,570
I just don't know. I just don't know how to. I don't know how to bring about that change.

287
00:29:39,570 --> 00:29:47,470
And and of course, every civil rights movement has always had a hard pushback from the authoritarian rights historically.

288
00:29:47,470 --> 00:29:53,110
So that's also kind of a huge fear. And I'm worried about us losing women's rights and I'm worried about us tipping like Hoder and fascism.

289
00:29:53,110 --> 00:29:57,450
And I'm not really worried about people acting out of fear.

290
00:29:57,450 --> 00:30:05,080
And maybe that's where this kind of storytelling is for this kind of imagining a better future or imagining a different future from where we are now.

291
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:13,140
It's come at fear because I think fear is very insular and I think fear shuts you down and you're just so closed.

292
00:30:13,140 --> 00:30:17,130
And what we need is more imagination to open up. That's really beautiful, Lauren.

293
00:30:17,130 --> 00:30:23,670
It's so hard to work through the kind of the fear and the paralysing quality of this.

294
00:30:23,670 --> 00:30:28,710
And to keep working for it. I mean that I think that's one of the things that I most admire about your work,

295
00:30:28,710 --> 00:30:33,510
that you push back against the paralysis that that things like gender based violence

296
00:30:33,510 --> 00:30:38,100
in South Africa produce and the paralysis of of these kinds of capitalist systems,

297
00:30:38,100 --> 00:30:44,200
because it can feel can feel that way. But, you know, paralysis is a cop out.

298
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:50,750
I don't know. I don't know how useful writing books actually is as as kind of a motive action.

299
00:30:50,750 --> 00:30:59,220
It's the thing I can do. Yeah. Yeah. And I honestly feel like art is the only thing we can hold onto right now.

300
00:30:59,220 --> 00:31:04,900
Narrative feature. For those writers and speculators listening,

301
00:31:04,900 --> 00:31:13,060
stay with us now for writing prompts and exercises designed to encourage putting pen to paper or hands to keyboard,

302
00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:24,750
as well as reflection on the writing process. The section is designed and presented by Louis Greenberg.

303
00:31:24,750 --> 00:31:30,390
Louis is an editor, writing tutor and author. Born and bred in Johannesburg, South Africa.

304
00:31:30,390 --> 00:31:38,430
Apart from his own genre, confused novels and short stories, he's co-written five horror novels and a handful of stories as SL Grey.

305
00:31:38,430 --> 00:31:42,540
Collaborating with Sara Lotz, a time bookseller.

306
00:31:42,540 --> 00:31:47,040
He's been working as a freelance editor and writing tutor for over 10 years.

307
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:59,340
He currently teaches creative writing and drama writing courses for the University of Oxford's Continuing Education Department.

308
00:31:59,340 --> 00:32:07,020
Over the eight episodes of Narrative Futures, I'll be presenting a series of writing prompts and exercises linked to the interviews.

309
00:32:07,020 --> 00:32:13,740
We hope they'll help inspire you to create and make you feel connected in these isolated times.

310
00:32:13,740 --> 00:32:20,910
What is the point? Darren Buker says, I don't know how useful writing books is as a mode of action.

311
00:32:20,910 --> 00:32:26,100
I'd like to start off with that question that many writers face at least 20 times a day.

312
00:32:26,100 --> 00:32:30,030
What is the point? Why bother? Some writers like Buke is in.

313
00:32:30,030 --> 00:32:35,880
Many of the writers in the series find fuel in addressing social issues and reimagining futures.

314
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,350
Some writers want to entertain. Some writers want to express themselves.

315
00:32:40,350 --> 00:32:46,890
You can often find a blend of various motivations. Whatever the reason you do it, writing is hard.

316
00:32:46,890 --> 00:32:55,200
It's an awkwardly slow process in a fast world. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of self-doubt for very little reward or acknowledgement.

317
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:00,750
Your rewards are most often self generated a brief sense of satisfaction or contentment.

318
00:33:00,750 --> 00:33:08,520
You might argue that the publishing industry thrives on keeping creators insecure, disconnected and disempowered.

319
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:15,420
My opinion is that the slow depth of writing creates empathy, art, creative, transcendent communication,

320
00:33:15,420 --> 00:33:21,000
storytelling meaning making with the ideas are challenging and subversive or comforting.

321
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:27,030
Entertainment or both is profoundly important, especially in times like these.

322
00:33:27,030 --> 00:33:32,100
That's my opinion. What's yours? What brings you to your notebook or your desk?

323
00:33:32,100 --> 00:33:37,500
When there are so many easier things to do? What brings you to this segment of this podcast?

324
00:33:37,500 --> 00:33:44,730
Why do you want to write? It's not essential to know the answer to this question, but it can help on those more difficult days.

325
00:33:44,730 --> 00:33:51,870
It can also go some way to giving our work a central theme or identity as a first exercise.

326
00:33:51,870 --> 00:33:59,460
Write a note to your future self or your past self, or an imagined or real writer who is struggling with motivation.

327
00:33:59,460 --> 00:34:06,450
List the reasons why you write why you bother. Keep this note.

328
00:34:06,450 --> 00:34:10,260
We'd love to see all any of your exercises. You'd like to share.

329
00:34:10,260 --> 00:34:23,670
So please email them to fut. thinking at torch dot o x dot ac dot UK and we'll post them on the blog.

330
00:34:23,670 --> 00:34:25,320
We have second prompt.

331
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:33,450
I'd like to pick up on Lauren Beukes, whose idea of a world without men and off to land and turn them into a technical exercise.

332
00:34:33,450 --> 00:34:39,150
Here's a scene from a book you've read on a film you've watched recently on from something you've written yourself.

333
00:34:39,150 --> 00:34:45,780
The characters should include men and women now reimagine it with men.

334
00:34:45,780 --> 00:34:48,150
You could approach this in various ways.

335
00:34:48,150 --> 00:34:54,750
You could write a brief synopsis of a longer work outlining how the characters and scenario have changed without men.

336
00:34:54,750 --> 00:34:59,850
You could write a passage of dialogue and action, changing the male characters to women.

337
00:34:59,850 --> 00:35:04,980
You might be erratic up the pages of the script, removing or changing the men.

338
00:35:04,980 --> 00:35:09,480
Feel free not to pause the recording, write the piece and then come back.

339
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:14,130
You might find it beneficial to do the exercises with the discussion in mind.

340
00:35:14,130 --> 00:35:18,000
Consider how you approach the task. What work did you choose?

341
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:25,170
Why did the male characters disappear altogether or were they transformed if they disappeared?

342
00:35:25,170 --> 00:35:30,870
What, if anything, filled the spaces they left? What does this new world look like?

343
00:35:30,870 --> 00:35:34,290
Is it better? Worse? The same?

344
00:35:34,290 --> 00:35:43,830
Buker says the patriarchy is a comfortable pair of shoes and that women are people too, just as capable of being losers, corrupt or violent as men.

345
00:35:43,830 --> 00:35:53,370
Consider your vision. Do you think it's achievable? Has your writing been useful?

346
00:35:53,370 --> 00:35:58,020
And that concludes episode one of Narrative Futures.

347
00:35:58,020 --> 00:36:04,140
If you have any comments or would like to submit work to be featured on our blog, please e-mail us at fut.

348
00:36:04,140 --> 00:36:08,310
Thinking at torch dot o x dot ac dot UK.

349
00:36:08,310 --> 00:36:18,900
You can also follow us on Twitter at Think Fut. Now, your host on this podcast is Chelsea Hayes and you can tweet me at Chelsy Underscore Haith.

350
00:36:18,900 --> 00:36:25,560
And Louis Greenberg is also on Twitter at the Greenberg. Thanks to Loren Vehicles for joining us on this episode.

351
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:40,947
Next week, I'll be speaking to Mohie Machiko about affer Futurism and who South Africa's first black superhero really is.