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 --> 00:00:27,380 What is speculation for? And how might we construct better narratives for a better future? 3 00:00:27,380 --> 00:00:31,180 Narrative Futures is a podcast coming to you from Futures Thinking. 4 00:00:31,180 --> 00:00:41,280 A research network housed in the Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities. 5 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:48,270 My name is Chelsea. Hey, I'm a doctoral researcher in the faculty of English here at the University of Oxford. 6 00:00:48,270 --> 00:00:51,690 Welcome to the second episode of Narrative Futures. 7 00:00:51,690 --> 00:01:04,460 With me virtually and across time zones is Mahallah Machiko to discuss Afro futurism and an alternative apocalypse. 8 00:01:04,460 --> 00:01:07,610 This podcast is interactive following the interview. 9 00:01:07,610 --> 00:01:15,500 You'll be treated to two writing prompts designed by novelist and creative writing tutor extraordinaire Louis Greenberg. 10 00:01:15,500 --> 00:01:19,910 We invite you to share your response to these with us via email at Fut. 11 00:01:19,910 --> 00:01:24,420 Thinking at Torch O, X, dot, AC UK. 12 00:01:24,420 --> 00:01:31,250 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, 13 00:01:31,250 --> 00:01:37,370 writers and ideas that we discuss. As the world so radically changes, 14 00:01:37,370 --> 00:01:48,470 we hope these conversations and ideas give you insight and inspiration to think about how else we might live and create collectively going forward. 15 00:01:48,470 --> 00:01:56,990 Mahallah Michiko is a novelist, performer and singer songwriter, the author of The Yearning and the short story collection, Intruder's. 16 00:01:56,990 --> 00:02:05,330 Her first novel won the University of Johannesburg PRISE. Her debut novel and was long listed for the International Dublin Literary Awards. 17 00:02:05,330 --> 00:02:10,010 She is also a co-writer of South Africa's first black superhero comic Quinsy, 18 00:02:10,010 --> 00:02:14,540 and has released albums and performs under the stage name Black Porcelain. 19 00:02:14,540 --> 00:02:18,590 She's also the author of the novel adaptation of the film Beyond the River. 20 00:02:18,590 --> 00:02:26,120 Born and raised in Soweto, Johannesburg, Michigan, now resides in a sleepy suburb of Cape Town, where she describes it. 21 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:35,250 People either start families or retire. 22 00:02:35,250 --> 00:02:43,140 What follows now is an extract from her short story collection, Intruder's, published in 2018 to critical acclaim. 23 00:02:43,140 --> 00:02:49,500 The story you're about to hear a part of is Untitled Three and forms part of a series. 24 00:02:49,500 --> 00:02:54,630 This short story is an exploration of the minutiae of an apocalypse, amnesia, 25 00:02:54,630 --> 00:03:01,080 speculative space time, transcendence and the consequences of segregation along economic lines. 26 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:07,610 In an end time scenario. 27 00:03:07,610 --> 00:03:17,940 I'm reading from Untitled three, which is one of three stories that kind of it was supposed to be a little story, which is why I called it untitled. 28 00:03:17,940 --> 00:03:27,460 And then one more started coming out. It's about two sisters. My mother calls me Havey, it's her idea of a joke. 29 00:03:27,460 --> 00:03:31,750 The skies turn black and you fell out of the sky like hail. 30 00:03:31,750 --> 00:03:37,720 Get it? My little Hailie. My mother's name is Millicent. 31 00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:44,200 That's it. No second name or surname. As if to add more confusion and take away more letters. 32 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:51,020 She prefers to be called senti pronounced say day like the money. 33 00:03:51,020 --> 00:03:55,930 You know a sent. I came into this world with nothing, not even send it in. 34 00:03:55,930 --> 00:04:02,530 So called me sending. She jokes about coming into this world without so much as a black saint. 35 00:04:02,530 --> 00:04:08,320 But she never says where she's from or how she and Yesin survived the fire rain. 36 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:13,000 We joke a lot about not having a surname. Certain names are old-world things. 37 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:17,560 So is giving birth. Santa found me and cared for me until I could walk again. 38 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:23,200 So she's my mother. There are a few others living in the rubble of what used to be Johannesburg. 39 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:27,730 We live in a penthouse at the abandoned even before fire fell from the sky. 40 00:04:27,730 --> 00:04:31,510 Carlton Hotel on the 30th floor. No roof over our heads. 41 00:04:31,510 --> 00:04:37,000 But we live in a penthouse. The top of the building was probably blown away in the last days. 42 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:43,570 We don't talk about the lost days. There isn't much to say. Too much lost and so many blank spaces. 43 00:04:43,570 --> 00:04:49,150 One day the world was dull and the next it was filled with far too much excitement and panic. 44 00:04:49,150 --> 00:04:55,210 One morning while we were eating sandwiches at Breaktime, Melanie asked me if I thought we would see the sun again. 45 00:04:55,210 --> 00:04:57,910 We can feel it, Mel. It hasn't gone anyway. 46 00:04:57,910 --> 00:05:06,880 There's just I know her bottom lip look like it was going to fall on the ground, but do you think those clouds will ever move? 47 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:13,300 Satellites can't see Earth. There haven't been any clear pictures. I'm scared. 48 00:05:13,300 --> 00:05:20,260 Melanie was my half sister sister because we were inseparable as kids and half because my mother cleaned her father's house. 49 00:05:20,260 --> 00:05:24,040 So perhaps they half considered me a part of their family. 50 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:30,220 After my parents died in a car accident, Melanie's parents promised to look after my sister and me. 51 00:05:30,220 --> 00:05:35,290 My real sister, Wynonna. I guess her having that name is a joke, too. 52 00:05:35,290 --> 00:05:44,170 Well, not means easy or uncomplicated, but nothing except her birth was easy for my sister when I was a child genius who got straight A's, 53 00:05:44,170 --> 00:05:50,110 went to university before her age mates graduated and never became the engineer she wanted to be. 54 00:05:50,110 --> 00:05:56,870 Instead, she grew tired of the job rejection letters and ended up working as a secretary for a GP. 55 00:05:56,870 --> 00:06:04,420 She'd also decided that being smart was a disadvantage. So she played small and unremarkable until she started to believe it. 56 00:06:04,420 --> 00:06:10,940 Santa thinks I don't like to talk about vanilla, but that's not true. Manola is the one thing that makes me feel sane. 57 00:06:10,940 --> 00:06:17,540 She's like a light. I run to, in my mind in the new world causes clouds in my heart when I'm staring up at a new sky. 58 00:06:17,540 --> 00:06:24,500 I run to win. Sometimes I find her in the kitchen of our small four roomed house and watching her eating supper quietly, 59 00:06:24,500 --> 00:06:28,970 her one hand scooping up up and gravy, the other hovering over my homework. 60 00:06:28,970 --> 00:06:33,780 Whenever she spots it a mistake, she would look up at me and pretend to choke on her food. 61 00:06:33,780 --> 00:06:37,950 At other times, I ran to Braunohler and find her sleeping peacefully on the sofa. 62 00:06:37,950 --> 00:06:42,100 After a long day of work. Quiet moments with my sister. 63 00:06:42,100 --> 00:06:49,320 Why the silence of the new world doesn't scare me. I've gotten used to the green skies that turn purple at night. 64 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:54,350 Sad day. Your baby's awake. She's alive. 65 00:06:54,350 --> 00:07:01,670 Those were the first words I heard. It was, yes. I couldn't see him at first, so I tried to sit up, but my arms wouldn't move. 66 00:07:01,670 --> 00:07:06,500 Suddenly, a bearded face appeared looking down at me. He said, Sorry. 67 00:07:06,500 --> 00:07:09,740 It's the straps. You were like a tromped on a boat. 68 00:07:09,740 --> 00:07:15,020 He unfastened the straps and helped me sit up while my brain was catching up with who were what I was. 69 00:07:15,020 --> 00:07:19,730 Instinctively, I brought a hand up to my eye and Yasseen slapped it away. 70 00:07:19,730 --> 00:07:25,030 He looked nervous, said, Please come here now. 71 00:07:25,030 --> 00:07:30,650 The word now jolted a picture out of the fog in my mind. No, no. 72 00:07:30,650 --> 00:07:35,570 The rest is still foggy, but I remember that I didn't speak for weeks. What was there to say? 73 00:07:35,570 --> 00:07:41,390 Yes, an incentive didn't push me. They spoke to me like I would one day choose to answer them. 74 00:07:41,390 --> 00:07:45,300 They looked at me when they spoke to me, said my new name when addressing me. 75 00:07:45,300 --> 00:07:49,730 And life carried on around me. We sat together at the dinner table. 76 00:07:49,730 --> 00:07:56,120 They went shopping for clothes. They thought I would like, taught me how to walk again and clean the wound with my left. 77 00:07:56,120 --> 00:08:02,540 I used to be. I avoided my reflection and walked the dark, damp rooms of the abandoned hotel. 78 00:08:02,540 --> 00:08:12,490 When the penthouse got too small for three people. We were we had trio, Yassin was them very tall, and his broad shoulders will always hunched. 79 00:08:12,490 --> 00:08:15,870 Must have been a way to make people feel comfortable around him. 80 00:08:15,870 --> 00:08:22,510 My sister Bonello was also tall and she hunched his shoulders in the same kind of way, especially around a boy she liked. 81 00:08:22,510 --> 00:08:29,310 Santa looked like an old woman. A little soft in the belly and the skin was beginning to sag, although she seemed to be in her 60s. 82 00:08:29,310 --> 00:08:33,420 She behaved a lot like a child sometimes when she was making suffer. 83 00:08:33,420 --> 00:08:38,490 She would stop, throw the food out the window and start making a brand new meal. 84 00:08:38,490 --> 00:08:44,340 And then there was me with my bandaged. I neglected afro and bouts of silence and anxiety. 85 00:08:44,340 --> 00:08:47,340 It took me days to figure out why I was always anxious. 86 00:08:47,340 --> 00:08:56,220 There was no people noise, no cause, no radios, no conversation, no music and no background to our new world. 87 00:08:56,220 --> 00:09:02,420 We were the background, the foreground, the main focus, and that which is out of focus. 88 00:09:02,420 --> 00:09:08,690 It was exhausting to know that we were it. You can be angry, but you're not allowed to keep quiet. 89 00:09:08,690 --> 00:09:14,450 It's just the two of us. Who else must I talk to? Do you want me to go crazy and talk to myself? 90 00:09:14,450 --> 00:09:19,690 That's what Woonona would say. Whenever we had a falling out and I chose to punish her with silence. 91 00:09:19,690 --> 00:09:28,010 It only spoke to himself when he thought we were watching him. His solo conversations were nonsensical and occasionally funny, really. 92 00:09:28,010 --> 00:09:33,530 He seemed to be watching Santa and I wanted to know why I had to wait until he was helping me with 93 00:09:33,530 --> 00:09:40,010 physio and Centre was out doing whatever it was that she did when she said she was going shopping. 94 00:09:40,010 --> 00:09:44,450 Yes. Yes. Hayley. Please tell me your real name, man. 95 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:49,060 Can't be nice too, because some junk name all the time. Gum. 96 00:09:49,060 --> 00:09:58,250 Go ahead. The last person to say my name was my sister, hearing it cause the lump in my throat but I carried on is using your real name. 97 00:09:58,250 --> 00:10:02,950 He nodded and carried on helping me stretch. I know you're not crazy. 98 00:10:02,950 --> 00:10:11,780 I told him. Never said I was. So why do you look at centre like like I don't trust her. 99 00:10:11,780 --> 00:10:19,870 He stood up and wiped his brow. How many women? Over 60. Do you think I can walk up and down the stairs of the skyscraper once a week? 100 00:10:19,870 --> 00:10:24,340 Why did I wind up here in this building? He was sweating and I was getting anxious. 101 00:10:24,340 --> 00:10:32,740 But I let him speak. Some of it was difficult to follow, but it sounded like Yassin was in the middle of a long operation on a patient with cancer. 102 00:10:32,740 --> 00:10:37,460 When fire started falling from the heavens, there was chaos in the hospital. 103 00:10:37,460 --> 00:10:42,660 I hadn't hit inside one of our labs. I don't know what I was thinking. 104 00:10:42,660 --> 00:10:50,110 He woke up in the penthouse and sent his explanation was she was looking for survivors and found him in the streets. 105 00:10:50,110 --> 00:10:55,480 Why is that so hard to believe? I asked, pulling myself up onto my feet. 106 00:10:55,480 --> 00:11:02,710 I lived in Kimberley. I was in a hospital in Kimberly and that's more than 400 kilometres from here. 107 00:11:02,710 --> 00:11:07,810 His voice echoed in such an eerie way that we both kept quiet for a while. 108 00:11:07,810 --> 00:11:15,640 I think I'll stop there. That's really lovely. Thank you. So thinking a little bit about the ideas that you you're dealing with there. 109 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:20,620 The future Johannesberg kind of end of the end times kind of story. 110 00:11:20,620 --> 00:11:31,210 And what really jumps out at me is the intimacy of the the four people living in the Carlton Hotel. 111 00:11:31,210 --> 00:11:40,330 And I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about about why you would have written those four characters together at the end of the world? 112 00:11:40,330 --> 00:11:46,480 Well, you know, this story untitled and I couldn't give it a title because it was supposed to be just a short story. 113 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:50,320 And I mean, it's a collection of short stories, but Untitled is one of the shortest ones. 114 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:55,090 And it was literally about two sisters and the world was coming to an end. 115 00:11:55,090 --> 00:12:00,580 And one of them had the privilege of going to, you know, great schools. 116 00:12:00,580 --> 00:12:08,140 And of course, she had access to people who could get on ships and fly away from the world as it was falling apart. 117 00:12:08,140 --> 00:12:17,710 And she then instead decides to give her sister the opportunity to see a new world, to have something new outside of her struggles. 118 00:12:17,710 --> 00:12:21,700 So one of them stays and the other goes. And that was supposed to be the end of it. 119 00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:29,710 And as I was writing more stories with the collection, these two sisters kept on bothering me and I needed to know what happened to them. 120 00:12:29,710 --> 00:12:35,470 So I. I wrote to Untitled to an untitled three and an untitled three. 121 00:12:35,470 --> 00:12:39,730 I mean, Johannesberg is such a it's a densely populated area. 122 00:12:39,730 --> 00:12:45,730 It's just busy all the time. There's no quiet in in Johannesburg City. 123 00:12:45,730 --> 00:12:54,550 And I tried to imagine what it would look like if, you know, a huge part of the population had disappeared. 124 00:12:54,550 --> 00:12:57,490 Where would people be? What would they do with those spaces? 125 00:12:57,490 --> 00:13:04,570 Because the fact that that Caulton Centre space is abandoned is crazy for me when there are so many people who need homes. 126 00:13:04,570 --> 00:13:10,450 Absolutely. And I was I was exploring what people would do with those buildings. 127 00:13:10,450 --> 00:13:20,470 And you know what it was left of of Johannesburg. And I liked these three characters because one of them obviously has a secret. 128 00:13:20,470 --> 00:13:28,660 And the other is kind of plain crazy. And one is just trying to figure out what's going on. 129 00:13:28,660 --> 00:13:31,000 But she's also recovering from her wounds. 130 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:38,290 So I just like this idea of three people who don't know each other but have become each other's families and how absolutely I 131 00:13:38,290 --> 00:13:48,250 love the idea of the chosen family in that and the bonding together that is necessitated by something like a catastrophic event, 132 00:13:48,250 --> 00:13:55,870 which we're all living through now. Right. I I'm interested in the introduction to your collection. 133 00:13:55,870 --> 00:14:01,090 Intruder's, you write after futurism is not for Africans. And I think this is really important. 134 00:14:01,090 --> 00:14:03,250 I'm gonna read this section now. 135 00:14:03,250 --> 00:14:10,900 You write our needs when it comes to imagining futures or even reimagining a fantasy present a different from elsewhere on the globe. 136 00:14:10,900 --> 00:14:17,530 We actually live on this continent as opposed to using it as a costume or a stage to play out our ideas. 137 00:14:17,530 --> 00:14:23,890 And I think the excerpt that you read about Johannesburg is obviously exemplary of that. 138 00:14:23,890 --> 00:14:29,950 Could you share a little bit more about your ideas about Afro futurism and what kind of stories you think are missing here? 139 00:14:29,950 --> 00:14:35,230 Well, you know, it's so funny because when I wrote this essay, I nearly didn't put it in the collection. 140 00:14:35,230 --> 00:14:39,490 And I told my publisher about it. And she says, well, you have to put it in the collection. 141 00:14:39,490 --> 00:14:44,200 And I didn't think anyone would read it. So I have a strong opinion about it. 142 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,260 And then suddenly people were saying it's controversial. 143 00:14:47,260 --> 00:14:55,870 And I thought, well, what's controversial about saying that all black people are not the same and that our needs are not the same. 144 00:14:55,870 --> 00:14:59,840 And I'm needs to need to imagine our futures is not the same. 145 00:14:59,840 --> 00:15:08,320 And I mean, Afro futurism, I don't have a problem with that. And I think we can consume and interact with each other's art without it being called. 146 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:13,260 One thing I'm very wary of cultural imperialism as well. 147 00:15:13,260 --> 00:15:21,730 And I talk about that in the essay as well. And I just think that in my stories about, you know, the future, 148 00:15:21,730 --> 00:15:27,680 I don't have to talk about the fact that these people have a language that they've been speaking for a long time. 149 00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:33,190 They have their own culture. I can actually get down to the nitty gritty of this is what it may look like. 150 00:15:33,190 --> 00:15:38,820 So in Untitled two, there's a story about most that would not know who ends up on this. 151 00:15:38,820 --> 00:15:44,530 You know, on the spaceship, the lived earth, all the rich people lived and they took a couple of poor people with them. 152 00:15:44,530 --> 00:15:49,990 And in the context of South Africa, it was well, for me anyway. 153 00:15:49,990 --> 00:15:54,280 Apartheid is not something of the past. So what would that mean on the ship? 154 00:15:54,280 --> 00:16:00,550 Well, people with no power. What would that mean? Would that mean they'd be an apartheid 2.0? 155 00:16:00,550 --> 00:16:03,820 And what policies is interesting thing, she says, as it is on Earth. 156 00:16:03,820 --> 00:16:12,080 So shall it be in heaven? She's literally talking about whatever crap they were dealing with in in South Africa before the world fell apart. 157 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:16,420 They'll deal with that on the spaceship and on the spaceship. There aren't any rules. 158 00:16:16,420 --> 00:16:23,950 There's no governments. There's no African Union. There's no U.N. You know, there there's no politicians or whatever. 159 00:16:23,950 --> 00:16:32,350 So it's it's a different kind of navigating post apartheid South Africa in a spaceship when the world has fallen apart. 160 00:16:32,350 --> 00:16:39,560 So those are the kinds of things that I'd like to deal with. And I think Afro futurism is great. 161 00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:43,310 I do like to read Afro futuristic work, 162 00:16:43,310 --> 00:16:51,740 but I don't think what I do is Afro futurism and I still maintain Afro futurism is not for Africans living in Africa. 163 00:16:51,740 --> 00:16:55,340 I don't know what our thing is called. I'm not a name of things. 164 00:16:55,340 --> 00:16:58,850 I just wanted to point that little thing out. Absolutely. 165 00:16:58,850 --> 00:17:06,950 And as you say, it was it was controversial, but I think so important, too, to register these kind of these differences in what. 166 00:17:06,950 --> 00:17:15,300 Yeah. As you say, what it mean to be black in the world in different places and with different levels of access to privilege and you avocation. 167 00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:22,160 Theros you know, in apartheid 2.0 or what will a well, what might rather, you know, 168 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:29,840 a post apartheid or a post-colonial world look like when or if we left the planet is really interesting. 169 00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:36,020 It's obviously part of that very rich heritage of of politics that imbues sci fi. 170 00:17:36,020 --> 00:17:39,920 You deal with the past really beautifully in the yarning. 171 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:44,630 Your debut novel for which you won the University of Johannesburg 2016 debut 172 00:17:44,630 --> 00:17:48,770 PRISE and you were shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and 173 00:17:48,770 --> 00:17:52,670 that you in that you mix traditional and secular views and you seem to be 174 00:17:52,670 --> 00:17:57,640 writing a future or sort of future present that relies on facing past trauma. 175 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,850 So this seems like a recurring theme in your work. Yeah. 176 00:18:01,850 --> 00:18:05,270 The other day I saw something and I don't know who wrote it. 177 00:18:05,270 --> 00:18:10,670 They say there is no before, often only during. And that's how I like to think of time. 178 00:18:10,670 --> 00:18:18,440 And that's why sometimes my stories are not linear. Sometimes we in the past and then we're back in the present and we're in the future. 179 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:22,700 I don't know how to write a linear story because that's not how time works for me. 180 00:18:22,700 --> 00:18:30,230 And I didn't know this about myself as a writer until until I started writing the yearning. 181 00:18:30,230 --> 00:18:37,490 And then this came up again in intruder's. I'm interested in time as something that there's no past or present for me. 182 00:18:37,490 --> 00:18:42,110 Sometimes when I'm when I'm writing, I like to think. 183 00:18:42,110 --> 00:18:48,200 I don't know how to explain this, but I like to think of everything as during like it's all happening right now. 184 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:55,420 And it all has an effect. And it becomes very. 185 00:18:55,420 --> 00:19:01,300 It becomes very tricky when people try to write things without any knowledge of the past or to be like, oh, 186 00:19:01,300 --> 00:19:08,620 I'm going to write something about futuristic things, not thinking about the past or how how history keeps repeating itself. 187 00:19:08,620 --> 00:19:13,120 That's why I like to think of things as during as opposed to before and after. 188 00:19:13,120 --> 00:19:23,650 Yeah. I really love that. Yeah. The kind of permanence of time rather than the linearity of it kind of inhabiting time rather than it passing us by. 189 00:19:23,650 --> 00:19:26,950 Which was, you know, one of the ways that we articulate it. 190 00:19:26,950 --> 00:19:33,190 I love the analogy that you give of wearing taxis or trainers that fits us versus risk, you know, 191 00:19:33,190 --> 00:19:43,310 resisting or wearing these taxis to resist parroting UK and US cultural imperialism's and just choosing to wear the shoes, the taxis that fit. 192 00:19:43,310 --> 00:19:50,290 And I want to ask and speak a little bit about your work with cuisine's South Africa's first superhero. 193 00:19:50,290 --> 00:19:56,890 So how does how do you think that works in that? And what is your experience of writing South Africa's first superhero? 194 00:19:56,890 --> 00:20:03,820 Been so lonesome, Keyzer and Clyde Beach started quizzing together, I think it was in 2014. 195 00:20:03,820 --> 00:20:09,370 And they kept on saying, oh, well, you know, quizes South Africa's first superhero and I love telling the story. 196 00:20:09,370 --> 00:20:17,950 Quinsy is not actually South Africa's first superhero. South Africa's first superhero was a dude called I think he was called Mighty Man. 197 00:20:17,950 --> 00:20:26,320 And this was part of apartheid propaganda. So Mighty Man was a good black person under apartheid. 198 00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:33,760 And he was basically an instrument of propaganda. He was going around telling other black people, carry a passbook. 199 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:37,540 Don't let them do this. Be a good citizen. 200 00:20:37,540 --> 00:20:44,680 But people never really took to Mighty Man, because if you're so mighty, why are you not stopping apartheid? 201 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:49,660 Yeah. So I love that story of Mighty Men. 202 00:20:49,660 --> 00:20:53,650 And I'm still to this day trying to find a copy of my two men. 203 00:20:53,650 --> 00:21:04,300 So I always think about that. The idea of mighty men being, you know, a good black person under apartheid and influencing other other black people. 204 00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:11,170 And then I think of the story of Quinsy, who is a kid from the Eastern Cape to Johannesburg. 205 00:21:11,170 --> 00:21:12,880 We call it Gold City. 206 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:21,190 And this guy is like lots of South African young South Africans who come from rural communities and move to big cities for opportunities. 207 00:21:21,190 --> 00:21:26,910 And he's doing what a lot of young people are doing, which is, you know, hustling, as they call it, and press up, push out patent. 208 00:21:26,910 --> 00:21:29,800 They've been doing all of this this kind of stuff. 209 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:37,390 And he's got to find himself and he's got he's wrestling with his parents traditional beliefs and what he believes is happening, 210 00:21:37,390 --> 00:21:47,200 what he thinks is cool. And he also he's also very reluctant to accept the Chosen One story because he is the chosen one. 211 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:53,290 And he'd really rather be an influencer with lots of Instagram followers and, you know, do cool stuff. 212 00:21:53,290 --> 00:22:00,640 And I like the idea of quinsy because it is very South African and everybody wants to be a star. 213 00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:05,920 I mean, you just need to spend time in Johannesburg to see that everybody really does believe that they're a star. 214 00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:13,060 And I liked the idea of quinsy being the antithesis of South Africa's real first superhero, which was my team man. 215 00:22:13,060 --> 00:22:16,910 And for me, quinsy is us wearing those those prevert. 216 00:22:16,910 --> 00:22:27,670 We get proverbial techies and staying in our lane, as opposed to just copying and pasting something that we think is cool from someone else. 217 00:22:27,670 --> 00:22:35,700 Absolutely. You've said elsewhere you've had really, really positive feedback on quinsy from from your readers. 218 00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:39,880 And I presume that that readership spanned generations. 219 00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:46,540 Yeah, it's really interesting when we when we do readings, because we we expect a much younger crowd. 220 00:22:46,540 --> 00:22:51,970 And then there are people who are like in their 20s, because when we write it, we also we do have subtext, 221 00:22:51,970 --> 00:22:56,980 you know, so the kids, of course, will enjoy like the bright colours and all of the car chases and whatever. 222 00:22:56,980 --> 00:23:04,300 But there's also a subtext about being being living a dual life in South Africa as as a young black person. 223 00:23:04,300 --> 00:23:12,100 You've got all of these kind of Western ideals, but you also have a family of traditional family wants something different from you. 224 00:23:12,100 --> 00:23:17,380 And there's two things that want things from you and you have to decide which way to go. 225 00:23:17,380 --> 00:23:21,220 And we have lots of parents saying they love quinsy, too. 226 00:23:21,220 --> 00:23:29,150 And it's always really interesting for me that so many people across, you know, so many age groups are. 227 00:23:29,150 --> 00:23:34,100 Already in love with this story, I think it's really universal in terms of. 228 00:23:34,100 --> 00:23:44,500 Well, maybe not universal, but universal, too. To South Africa. Because because of this kind of world view of anyone can make it in Johannesburg. 229 00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:52,370 Or how big is the city paved with gold. Which is, you know, for the longest time been part of the country's sort of mythology. 230 00:23:52,370 --> 00:24:00,920 And then the reality of kind of multiple cultures and trying to, as you say, mix the mix your traditional and your family expectations with. 231 00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:06,020 Yeah. With the Western ideals. I I'm going to repeat one of your own questions back at you. 232 00:24:06,020 --> 00:24:10,460 I think this is really interesting. And you don't answer it in the in the introduction to intruder's. 233 00:24:10,460 --> 00:24:19,100 So I'm really keen to hear what you think. Now, how does who we are right now affect an imagined future? 234 00:24:19,100 --> 00:24:23,420 Oh, OK. I don't know. 235 00:24:23,420 --> 00:24:31,860 I'm working through this in my work. You know, the more I write, the more I feel like. 236 00:24:31,860 --> 00:24:39,690 If we don't imagine a different world based on who we are and knowing what kind of a past we had, 237 00:24:39,690 --> 00:24:48,150 and maybe I'm speaking specifically about South Africans, if we don't think about where we come from, then how do we how do we imagine? 238 00:24:48,150 --> 00:24:52,110 Because we have to know the things we don't want to like. Here's a basic example. 239 00:24:52,110 --> 00:24:57,600 Apartheid. We don't want that. Right. It's it's part of who we are as part of our past. 240 00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:02,580 So when we imagine a future, obviously, one of the things is zero apartheid. 241 00:25:02,580 --> 00:25:07,320 But what were the the things that happened that made apartheid? 242 00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:12,090 So I won't say successful, but it it definitely went on for too long. 243 00:25:12,090 --> 00:25:18,360 It shouldn't have happened, but it went on for far too long. What were the circumstances that made that made that happen? 244 00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:22,770 And in order to imagine a future, we need to know all of that stuff. 245 00:25:22,770 --> 00:25:27,220 It's nice to know that some good came up with a couple of laws. But what was happening before? 246 00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:31,530 Would I go as far as the Anglo Boer War? Probably you. 247 00:25:31,530 --> 00:25:37,380 So I think if we if we have an understanding of who we are, what we've experienced and what has shaped us, 248 00:25:37,380 --> 00:25:42,810 and we want to imagine futures, I think we need to understand that first. 249 00:25:42,810 --> 00:25:48,880 So I don't know if I'm answering your question. I don't even know if I'm answering my own question. 250 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,770 Yeah, it's absolutely the case. And I think you do a really beautiful job of that, 251 00:25:52,770 --> 00:26:00,330 of digging into the who and the what of the characters to think about what kind of future they might inhabit. 252 00:26:00,330 --> 00:26:06,120 Thinking about what you might be reading or watching or interacting with media wise at the moment. 253 00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:09,780 What kind of imagined futures are you looking for? Wow. 254 00:26:09,780 --> 00:26:18,540 You know, I've been I've been thinking about love, this idea of love and how the world is really when we talk about love. 255 00:26:18,540 --> 00:26:24,090 People think about romantic love. And so this is because my my new novel. 256 00:26:24,090 --> 00:26:28,260 Well, the one it's my work in progress. It is about love. But it's not just about romantic love. 257 00:26:28,260 --> 00:26:35,690 It's about the work of love. You know, and given what's happening in the world, a lot of people are saying, teach me, 258 00:26:35,690 --> 00:26:44,210 I want to be different, but also I'm so sensitive to my privilege and love is undoing that, right. 259 00:26:44,210 --> 00:26:54,050 Love, love is unlearning and love is learning. And I think when I think about futures specifically in this book that I'm working on, 260 00:26:54,050 --> 00:26:58,940 there's a lot of learning and learning, but it's all rooted in love because love is work. 261 00:26:58,940 --> 00:27:03,470 And for me right now, when I think about futures, I'm thinking of the work of love, 262 00:27:03,470 --> 00:27:10,670 whether it's love for the land, love for yourself, love for your community, love for your gender. 263 00:27:10,670 --> 00:27:18,110 I just think for me right now, I'm I'm really, really thinking about if there's any future to be imagined, if needs. 264 00:27:18,110 --> 00:27:22,900 We need to start looking at what the work of love is. 265 00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:27,680 That's really, really powerful. I love that idea. I'm really looking forward to the next moment. 266 00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:31,670 When is it? Is there a due date on that? 267 00:27:31,670 --> 00:27:38,000 Can you give us any teases? Both my agent and my publisher think they're going to get something soon. 268 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:44,570 But I've been doing so much. I'm writing I'm just going back to things and going, oh, no. 269 00:27:44,570 --> 00:27:49,430 When I first wrote this and this was many years ago when I first rooted, this seemed like a great idea. 270 00:27:49,430 --> 00:27:53,450 But I've grown so much that I feel like I'm kind of rewriting it. 271 00:27:53,450 --> 00:27:58,490 It's becoming a different story, so I don't know when it will be. 272 00:27:58,490 --> 00:28:05,810 Out in the world, that's kind of your process, isn't it? That you you write something and you leave it alone for a bit and you come back to it? 273 00:28:05,810 --> 00:28:10,540 Yeah, I I'm one of those people that cannot be working on one thing only. 274 00:28:10,540 --> 00:28:15,860 So right now I'm working on quinsy and I'm working on this novel, 275 00:28:15,860 --> 00:28:21,290 but I've already started another writing project that will probably be novel number three. 276 00:28:21,290 --> 00:28:28,190 And I like to do that because then I don't have anxiety about, oh my goodness, can I still write or whatever. 277 00:28:28,190 --> 00:28:35,660 And I'm sure this this side thing that I'm doing for fun, I'll be I'll go back to it in two years and be like, oh, yeah, this was a good idea. 278 00:28:35,660 --> 00:28:49,770 Let's do this. I always like to have something in the wings. For those writers and speculators listening, 279 00:28:49,770 --> 00:28:57,960 stay with us now for writing prompts and exercises designed to encourage putting pen to paper or hands to keyboard, 280 00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:09,720 as well as reflection on the writing process. The section is designed and presented by Larry Greenberg in Untitled Three. 281 00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,320 Mahallah Machiguenga reimagines her home city of Johannesburg. 282 00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:20,850 In an apocalyptic time, writers and filmmakers are very aware of the pleasure of destroying our home towns. 283 00:29:20,850 --> 00:29:27,210 For your first prompt, describe an end to your hometown, city, neighbourhood or village. 284 00:29:27,210 --> 00:29:33,480 You might like to write a few paragraphs of key description and action and then write some brief contextual nerds. 285 00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:40,170 As always, the word Constance up to you. But for the purposes of this exercise, I'd like you to keep it local. 286 00:29:40,170 --> 00:29:45,780 Imagine an apocalypse in a place you know intimately, maybe even to the extent of boredom. 287 00:29:45,780 --> 00:29:53,790 It may just be a few streets or familiar field with maybe an entire city since you can commute with your eyes closed. 288 00:29:53,790 --> 00:30:01,050 Remember that apocalypse isn't necessarily complete destruction. What does apocalypse mean to you? 289 00:30:01,050 --> 00:30:05,850 You may like to pause now and come back when you've written when you've written your pocalypse. 290 00:30:05,850 --> 00:30:10,740 Ask yourself what a rich person to destroy. Why? 291 00:30:10,740 --> 00:30:15,510 What have you chosen to change? Has anything grown or prospered? 292 00:30:15,510 --> 00:30:23,860 What have you chosen to describe as your focus? Been on buildings, nature, people or anything else? 293 00:30:23,860 --> 00:30:29,730 Let's step two five ways. Your familiar place will be worse. Let's step two five ways. 294 00:30:29,730 --> 00:30:41,700 Life. They might be better. As always, please feel free to share your results with us. 295 00:30:41,700 --> 00:30:47,220 Machiko says she doesn't know how to write a linear narrative. There's no before or after, she says. 296 00:30:47,220 --> 00:30:55,860 Only during this interplay between linear and non-linear and nested narratives is a common theme throughout these interviews. 297 00:30:55,860 --> 00:31:00,480 Your second prompt practise playing with temporal form. 298 00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:08,910 Take the Genesis myth or any other famous linear cause and effect plotline and rewrite it in a non-linear way. 299 00:31:08,910 --> 00:31:15,420 I often think of Kurt Vonnegut s troll from a Dorians and Slaughterhouse five when I think of non-linear narrative. 300 00:31:15,420 --> 00:31:18,900 They teach Billy Pilgrim to become unstuck in time. 301 00:31:18,900 --> 00:31:26,250 They see humans as stuck in a railway car, travelling in the same direction at a constant speed, looking only in one narrow direction. 302 00:31:26,250 --> 00:31:30,990 Whereas travel from a Dorians can visit any part of the temporal nature it will. 303 00:31:30,990 --> 00:31:36,870 Mastering Troughing Andorian Time would allow us not only to write stories in an interesting new way, 304 00:31:36,870 --> 00:31:46,260 but also as a black product releases us from the concepts of fate and destiny, which we might argue have caused a number of problems in the world. 305 00:31:46,260 --> 00:31:50,220 How would the creation of Adam and Eve and Original Sin look different? 306 00:31:50,220 --> 00:32:03,960 If cause was unlinked from effect? Consider the technical and philosophical repercussions of being unstuck in time. 307 00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:08,110 And that concludes the second episode of Narrative Futures. 308 00:32:08,110 --> 00:32:13,870 If you have any comments or would like to submit work to be featured on our blog, please e-mail us at fut. 309 00:32:13,870 --> 00:32:21,910 Thinking at Torch Erich's Dicey Dot UK. You can also follow us or tweet us on Twitter at Think Fut. 310 00:32:21,910 --> 00:32:28,840 Now, your host on this podcast is Chelsea Haith and you can tweet me at Chelsie Underscore Haith. 311 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:36,130 And Louis Greenberg is also on Twitter at Louis Greenberg. Thanks to Mahallah Machiko for joining us on this episode. 312 00:32:36,130 --> 00:32:40,360 Next week, I'll be speaking to Sami Shah about jinns. 313 00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:54,420 That's DJI and then Pakistani maths and whether or not we might replace our governments with benign A.I. 314 00:32:54,420 --> 00:32:58,018 Narrative features.