Spending a day With My Favourite Author


The Image is taken from Blog Chatter


    I can include a list of authors on my favourites, filter them down to five and then screen them to a final three. The finalists are J M Coetzee, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Trevour Noah. 


    JM Coetzee is the two times Booker Prize winner for his novels, Life &Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace in 1999. The theme of Life and Times of Michael K hadn't made sense to me when I read it for the first time. It was a time when I couldn't analyse creative writing beyond the book's pages and that of a great writer like Coetzee.  The novel unfolds the concerns and the dilemma of Michael K, ugly to look at, beset by life conditions he never comprehends and can't control during the times of a fictional civil war in South Africa. Another reason to be fascinated by the two books is the story settings are places I am living or lived. 


    Disgrace is a suggestive story about post-apartheid South Africa. Here is my review of it. 


    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the next on my final list. Read three of her works--Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah, the third I like the most. Predisposed to how the historical and political
developments of the places she keeps as the backdrops of her stories. 


    Americanah is a love story- two Nigerian-born teenagers weave together dreams for a bright future but get apart under a host of compelling circumstances. Into that time gap, Adichie brings in the racial tensions between the Black on Black and the White on Black in two developed nations US and the UK, where one of them has migrated to and the other an undocumented immigrant, adding a heady mix of humour and sympathy. While reading the novel, I feared that the US would have imposed at most a minuscule fatwa on her, but instead, they conferred on her more titles as a reward.


    Trevor Noah, however, is my best choice of the time. He is a South African-born comedian, actor, writer and political commentator, and host of Daily Show, a comedy show, an American satirical news programme on Comedy Central. 'Born A Crime,' is his book, a collection of 18 essays and each highlighting his life experiences.



    "Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of his relationship with his fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother--his tea-mate, a woman determined to save her son the cycles of poverty, violence and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life." Taken from the book's blurb.


    The book gave me firsthand knowledge of the horror experience of a child growing up in apartheid South Africa, born to a Black mother and a Swiss father- when the relationship was illegal matter liable for punishment and jail terms. Also, about the racial tensions that ruled the lives, especially of the Black, Whites, and people of colour, the racial categories of apartheid South Africa. 

It was intriguing to know the origin of these categories and how their statuesque was kept and maintained during apartheid. Until I read Trevor's book, I had no idea about this.  


Have a day with Trevor. 


    It's possible to meet him in Cape Town if he is around, but I should get an appointment and follow the procedures and protocols. However, I read in the news that he has filed a criminal suit against a New York hospital and doctor after allegedly undergoing surgery at their facilities. Just mentioning it to suggest the practical hindrances in meeting him personally. He might be busy sorting out all his show businesses and the lawsuit.  


    That is all right for me when I can meet him in imagination. Have a pack of questions to ask him, among them how he can punch his writings with humour. He is indeed the humour king who would give me tips for that. And humour is something that doesn't come to my writing. 

When I meet him in real, I shall write more on that.


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