Finding oneself on the wrong side of history

Alan Twigg's review of my novel The Afrikaner in the spring issue of "BC Booklook" goes to the core of the predicament faced by the protagonist of the story, Zoe du Plessis, a young female scientist (33) who grew up in South Africa in a deeply entrenched white family: "Zoe is little concerned with money, status or personal appearance. Instead she seeks belonging."

Later on, Twigg thus describes and comments on Zoe's field expedition in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a hunt for fossils and for herself: "In the field, near an encampment of twenty some Bushmen people, in charge of men under strenuous circumstances, able to have a brief shower only once a week, Zoe proceeds to explore her place in South African society, contemporary and otherwise, with a candour that makes The Afrikaner increasingly engaging."

At the end of his review Twigg hints at the film transposition of Zoe's story, which would allow to show southern Africa's majestic beauty, its cultural complexity and historical fault lines.

You can read the whole review here:

https://issuu.com/bcbookworld/docs/spring_2020_issue

Arianna Dagnino, The Afrikaner. A Novel  (Guernica, 2019)

Zoe's Story, "The Afrikaner,"​ Goes International

A woman scientist ventures into a scorching desert to search for fossils and confront the dark shadows of her Afrikaner heritage. Set between South Africa and the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, the story of palaeontologist Zoe du Plessis, the Afrikaner of the book title, has the ability to cross borders and resonate with the hearts and souls of readers far away from the hot plains of southern Africa. Because all people have a history and all nations have bloodlines. They all get shaken up and suffer trauma. But they all learn to cope with the past, learn from it and find a resolution. This is the underlying message running through The Afrikaner, which after its English publication will soon be available in German, Arabic, Italian and Afrikaans. Covid-19 permitting, the German translation will be launched at the 2020 edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

In the meantime, the author of the novel (Arianna Dagnino) and her writing partner (Ernest Mathijs), both based in Vancouver, have completed the screenplay based on Zoe's story and started pitching the script to interested producers and film makers. In their view, the screenplay would profit from a synergetic triangulation between South Africa, Europe and North America.

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXmKFWMLgKM

Book at Guernica's Website: https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578

Book Website: https://blogs.ubc.ca/afrikaner/

Listen to Chapter 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rogbi6kmmkw&feature=youtu.be

Audio book of "The Afrikaner" (Chapter 1)

Listen to an audio excerpt from Arianna Dagnino's novel "The Afrikaner" read by the Los Angeles-based, South African actor Dennis Kleinman from A World Voice: Transcending Geographic Boundaries. 

Audiobook (Chatpter 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMdciX0qLUs&feature=youtu.be

The Afrikaner. A Novel (and now also a screenplay!)

hashtag#TheAfrikaner #theafrikanernovel #theafrikanerbook

How much freedom should a creative writer have?

I thank the South African writer Toni Henning for her review of my novel “The Afrikaner” (Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2019). One comment struck me most and made me ponder over the total freedom writers can and should have when devising their stories and the characters that inhabit them: “I can hardly believe that the author is not South African.”

Here is the Toni Henning’s full review: 

“The Afrikaner stirred a number of emotions in me; pride in the beauty of the landscapes and places of South Africa, my beloved country, incredibly described by Arianna Dagnino; the pain of loss, new and old; shame and frustration triggered by the recount of history and the fact that, so many years later, we, as a nation, are still struggling to break free; disheartened that the potential of Africa is lost due to this continent’s people’s short-sightedness and the world’s indifference; and, hope that even the most dire circumstances can be healed. Arianna’s characters are genuine; their emotions are raw; their lives are real. Having read the book I can hardly believe that the author is not South African. To read The Afrikaner is to find The Rainbow Nation exposed.”

https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578
https://blogs.ubc.ca/afrikaner/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXmKFWMLgKM

When reading is good in time of crisis: "I felt her every emotion, her pain, her anxiety, her fatigue-she became so real that I could even smell her"​

I thank the South African poetess and blogger Constance van Niekerk (Connie V) for her heartfelt review of "The Afrikaner". You can read the whole review in her blog "Afrique Beat": https://afriquebeat.com/…/03/17/the-afrikaner-a-book-review/

"The Afrikaner is a story that takes us to the past, the present and the future of South Africa. It gives us hope, as a nation. It speaks a message of love, forgiveness and peace. "

[...]

"I absolutely enjoyed every moment with Zoe, the main character of The Afrikaner. I felt her every emotion, her pain, her anxiety, her fatigue. She became so real that I could even smell her. It was very easy for me to relate to this saga as I live in South Africa and naturally wish to learn about the history of this country. Zoe can easily represent South Africa: a young land that has suffered so much injustices, so much heartache, pain, violence and bloodshed. But she has to move on. She has to be strong. She has to find her strength in herself, in her deserts, in her oceans and rivers, in her people and in their diversity in culture and language. She has to move away from the place of pain and start afresh on a clean slate. Unfortunately, as Kurt says at page 229, “The past always resurfaces.” Humankind’s past, our individual past and our nation’s past. It cannot be buried and remain buried. How to handle it when it resurfaces is the main issue. Cyril says at page 184, “Diversity is healthy. We can accept each other and be together without giving up our differences. It’s useless – even foolish – to reduce us to a common denominator.” Kurt sums it up, “The Tribes of this country – the white, the black, the coloured – share a long history. Sure, a bloody and violent one. But we’ve been together for hundreds of years now […] This common lived history should be the foundation of our new country.”

Let's not forget that books – fiction as much as nonfiction – are our true companions and sometimes even our real saviours in times of crisis.

Journeys into the page: how (imaginary) travelling & movement can inspire & nurture your writing

If you ever happen to be in British Columbia in May, find a way to reach Salmon Arm, in the Thompson Okanagan region, for the "Word on the Lake Literary Festival" (May 8-10). Salmon Arm has been ranked as the best place to live in B.C. and the sixth-best place to live in Canada by Maclean's magazine.

On May 9, I will be giving this workshop: "Journeys into the page: how (imaginary) travelling & movement can inspire and nurture your writing". Here is a brief description of what we will be working on:
Travel is commonly associated with exploration, adventure, stories of growth, and personal transformation. Most of the great writers of all times have tried their hand at or honed their skill through travel-based writing. In this highly interactive workshop, we will discover why this is so by taking you on a journey through memorable stories (of past masters) and highly personal experiences (yours).
Expect to be asked many questions and to have to write your answers in short, fast paragraphs. At the end of the workshop, expect to have developed a mental map of your own creative writing mind and of the reasons why it functions at its best once you have really or virtually left the comfort of home.

https://wordonthelakewritersfestival.com/sessions/journeys-into-the-page

Arianna Dagnino’s cultural and professional experience crosses many borders and five continents. Born in Genoa, Italy, she studied in London, Moscow and Boston before entering journalism and international reporting, which led her to spend several years in Southern Africa and Australia and travel across China and the Middle East.
She has published books – both in Italian and English – of fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as on the effects of digital technologies and global mobility.

Her newly-published novel The Afrikaner (Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2019) is an on-the-road tale set between South Africa and Namibia that covers the terrains of love, race and science. Arianna holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of South Australia currently teaches Italian literature and film adaptation at the University of British Columbia; together with her colleague Dr. Ernest Mathijs she has just finished writing a film script based on her novel.

You can find her @ /https://blogs.ubc.ca/ariannadagnino/
https://blogs.ubc.ca/afrikaner/
New in 2019: The Afrikaner. A Novel (Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2019)
https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578

 

Authors, What are you reading right now? Answering from Van!

"It’s simply immense in scope, character development, historical reconstruction, poetic sensibility, human empathy. I consider it a sort of secular Bible for the creative writer. It belongs to another era but it still speaks to us, to all fundamental weaknesses and strengths as human beings." Which book am I talking about? You can discover it by reading my interview with the "well-seasoned librarian" Dean Jones, originally published in his ongoing series on Medium, the platform with 120 million curious readers.
Read the interview originally published on Medium here (with pictures) or here below:

Name: Arianna Dagnino

Author of: “The Afrikaner. A Novel” (Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2019); “Jesus Christ Cyberstar” (Ipoc, 2009); “Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility” (Purdue University Press, 2015)

Can you tell me about your latest book “The Afrikaner”?
In a nutshell, The Afrikaner is an on-the-road tale set in newly post-apartheid South Africa and in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia that covers the terrains of race, love, historical guilt, and the tensions of a society “lost in transition.” The book is inspired by the five years (1996–2000) I spent in the southern African region as an international reporter for the Italian press.
The main character, Zoe du Plassis, 33, is a young female scientist (paleontologist) of Afrikaner descent. A conflicted woman struggling with group guilt and a dark family secret, after a fatal accident Zoe embarks on a field expedition into the hot plains of the Kalahari Desert in search of early human fossils. Her journey of atonement and self-discovery will lead her to memorable encounters with a troubled writer, a Bushman shaman, and a Border War veteran.

In reviewing the book for BC Book World, Alan Twigg wrote: “Art must be cathartic, original and memorable… North Americans have gleaned a deeper awareness of South Africa through Alan Paton’s ‘Cry the Beloved Country,’ Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee. We’ve also seen ‘Invictus’ or ‘A Dry White Season’ or Richard Attenborough’s ‘Cry Freedom’ about Stephen Biko, the man that Nelson Mandela described as ‘the spark that lit a veld fire across South Africa.’ ‘The Afrikaner’ deserves its place in that pantheon.”

List of a few books you are currently reading?
Aleksandar Hemon’s The Book of my lives; Jared Diamond’s Upheaval: turning points for nations in crisisand then a series of less renown but interesting writers (I like to discover new stuff beyond what big publishing houses are keen to promote with their powerful marketing machines): Richard Goodship’s The Camera Guy, Yigal Zur’sDeath in Shangri-La, Geoffrey Fox’s A Gift for the Sultan, Anca Cristofovici, Stela. Since I am working on the film script of my novel The Afrikaner, I am also reading Laura Brennan’s The Screening Room: Turning a Novel into a Screenplay and Ken Dancyger’s and Jeff Rush’s Alternative Scriptwriting.

What is one book you have read more than once?
Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Why? (If applicable). It’s simply immense in scope, character development, historical reconstruction, poetic sensibility, human empathy. I consider it a sort of secular Bible for the creative writer. It belongs to another era but it still speaks to us, to all fundamental weaknesses and strengths as human beings.

Do you have a “Guilty Secret” book that you have been reading for some time but have never finished?
I have so many of them! Just to mention a couple: Proust’s À la recherche, Joyce’s Ulysses, and Don de Lillo’s Underworld.

What was your favorite book as a child?
In different stages of childhood: Mary Walcott’s Little Women (Joe! Oh Joe!), Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Zane Grey’s The Call of the Canyon. One can tell I belong to an “ancient” generation of writers…

Which writer do you most admire? Why?
J.M. Coetzee: Because I will never be able to write as he does: so neatly, so sparingly. All those perfectly-constructed, crystalline sentences — saying so much with so little.

Do you have a book that you have considered a “Life changer”?
Three books, actually (for three different reasons): Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Primo Levi’s If This is a Man, and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Have you ever read a famous book that you consider to be “Over Rated”? If so, which book and why?
Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Tedious, navel-gazing, dull characters — a story that never picks up. The writing is damn good, no doubt. But what’s the real purpose of all this aesthetic effort and all those hours of dedicated reading? To me it’s just a waste of time on both sides: the author’s and the reader’s. After this book I doubt I would ever want to read anything else written by Franzen.

If you could invite up to 10 authors living or dead to dinner, who would you invite and what would you serve?
All dead writers: I find them more fascinating than the living bunch.
Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Zelda Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Robert M. Pirsig, Toni Morrison, Paul Bowles, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Truman Capote. I would serve a hearty Italian meal and good red wine to ease/spark the conversation.

Any advice for aspiring writers?/Artists
Anything goes. Find/make your own rules in order to get into that sacred space of creative imagination. And once you are in there, stick to it as much as you can, blocking out any possible distractions. Thus: forget about FB, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and all that time-wasting social media stuff. Go off the grid, head into the woods, or live by an ocean. Become a recluse, lead a monastic life, find your cave, or throw yourself into the thick shrubs of urban life. But live: live harshly, widely, intensely. Talk to people: real people (not digital avatars or celebrities). Travel. Love. Suffer. And write, write, write, whenever you can, wherever you are. Live in your characters’ heads. Talk to them, talk like they would do. Hate them, love them, suffer with them, for them. And then deliver. Never leave a page, a chapter, a manuscript unfinished. And then start editing, rewriting, editing — until exhaustion, until you have no regrets. Until you will be able — and have the right — to say: “I did my best. Let’s see what you think of my work”.

About Arianna Dagnino:
In her career as an international reporter, literary translator and academic researcher, Arianna Dagnino has lived in many countries, including a five-year stint in South Africa. The author of several books on the impact of global mobility, science, and new technologies, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of South Australia and currently teaches at the University of British Columbia. Her latest novel, “The Afrikaner” (Guernica, Toronto, 2019) is an on-the-road adventure story that covers the terrains of race, love, white guilt, science, shamanism, and cultural survival.

Links/Websites:
“The Afrikaner”: Blog
YouTube Book trailer of “The Afrikaner”:
The Afrikaner: Book review 1:
The Afrikaner Book review 2:
Interview: “Writer Heads to South Africa for new Novel.”
Read the interview on Medium here: https://medium.com/authors-what-are-you-reading/what-are-you-reading-right-now-with-arianna-dagnino-75bd82bbb052