{"id":6173,"date":"2010-10-11T15:15:08","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T19:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=6173"},"modified":"2013-09-13T03:36:57","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T07:36:57","slug":"damon-galgut-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/11\/damon-galgut-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Damon Galgut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/damongalgut.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"572\" height=\"429\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6181\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/damongalgut.jpg 572w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/damongalgut-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>In the unusually high praise of Rian Malan, author of <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802136842\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0802136842&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theparrev0f-20\" target=\"_blank\">My Traitor&#8217;s Heart<\/a><em> and great doomsayer of South African letters, the work of novelist Damon Galgut occupies something of a vaunted position: \u201cIf there is a posterity, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802141692\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0802141692&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theparrev0f-20\" target=\"_blank\">The Good Doctor<\/a><em> will be seen as one of the great literary triumphs of South Africa\u2019s transition, a novel that is in every way the equal of J. M. Coetzee\u2019s <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0143115286\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0143115286&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theparrev0f-20\" target=\"_blank\">Disgrace<\/a><em>.\u201d So sayeth Malan\u2014and I\u2019m inclined to agree. <\/em>The Good Doctor<em>, Galgut\u2019s 2003 Booker Prize\u2013nominated novel, was a tense psychological examination of modern South Africa; <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0046LUPUY\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B0046LUPUY&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theparrev0f-20\" target=\"_blank\">The Impostor<\/a><em>, his 2008 follow-up, cut perhaps even deeper. This month, Europa Editions publishes Galgut\u2019s latest book, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1609450116\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=1609450116&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theparrev0f-20\" target=\"_blank\">In a Strange Room<\/a><em>, a series of linked travel stories told in the shifting perspectives of a South African wanderer named Damon. It has been shortlisted for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themanbookerprize.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Man Booker Prize<\/a> as well, which will be announced tomorrow. Galgut recently answered questions by e-mail before leaving his home in Cape Town for the festivities in London. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>In a Strange Room<\/em> is made up of three journeys, each first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/fiction\/5890\/the-lover-damon-galgut\">published<\/a> in <em>The Paris Review<\/em>. How did you conceive of these pieces coming together to form a unified whole?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wrote the first two pieces about ten years ago, but the book still felt incomplete, out of balance somehow. It was only with the addition of the third part, about three years ago, that everything finally cohered. And as is often the case with novels, at least in my case, the unity was felt rather than logically thought out. I\u2019m often the last person to understand that what I sense has a rational basis to it. In this case, it has to do with the three relationships the book deals with. The first is about power. The second is about love. The third is about guardianship, taking care of somebody in need. And when you stop to consider it, these are the three primary forms of human relationships. If you have a connection with another person, not necessarily a positive connection, it\u2019s going to take the form of one or more of these relationships. So that\u2019s the thematic unity of the book, the invisible architecture behind the words. And it\u2019s at no point spelled out, so readers have to sense it in much the same way I did. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve described how there was a discussion with your editors at the magazine about how to label these stories, whether fiction or memoir. And, indeed, there\u2019s been some debate in the English press as to whether the book should qualify as a novel and be eligible for the Booker Prize. Why did you call it fiction?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Actually, it was the people at <em>The Paris Review<\/em> who decided to call it fiction. I was very happy with that choice, because it points up what I consider to be the real subject of the book, namely memory. Think about the voice of the book. Is it speaking with the authority of memoir or travelogue? No, this is a voice that switches continually between first and third and second person, doubling back to correct itself, musing about how unsure it is of this or that detail. It\u2019s the voice of memory, in short, which is also the voice of fiction. What do I mean by that? Well, firstly, there is the obvious point that none of us remember the same events in the same way. You only have to listen to witnesses speaking in a courtroom to be sure of that. But also, maybe less obviously, I believe that we construct our memories in the same way that a story-writer constructs a fiction. The memory of any moment or event is made up of a disparate jumble of impressions and perceptions, out of which we pick in retrospect what we think of as the \u201ccentral\u201d or \u201cmeaningful\u201d ones. And we do this far more keenly when we link events into a narrative, which a journey or a relationship inevitably is. One thing leads to a second thing, which leads to a third \u2026 but the links are a form of meaning we bring after the fact. We raise certain memories into prominence and drop others out of sight to serve this purpose. All of us do it, all the time, making up the stories of our lives as we go along. How is this different to the fiction writer creating meaning?<\/p>\n<p><strong>This book is also a departure for you in terms of territory\u2014it\u2019s often set very far from the travails of present-day South Africa. After <em>The Good Doctor<\/em> and <em>The Impostor<\/em>, did you want to explore a different angle as a rootless South African abroad?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, it was a huge relief to be free of history for a while. Traveling is one of few zones of experience where you are not directly plugged into the world around you. You&#8217;re not part of the society you\u2019re passing through. It was a way for me to remain a South African without having to feel answerable to the usual set of South African questions, which I can tell you often feels, in a literary sense, very tedious indeed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There is a line in the beginning of <em>The Good Doctor<\/em> where a character says, \u201cThe past has only just happened. It\u2019s not past yet.\u201d Do you have the sense that there\u2019s a wealth of novelists exploring South Africa\u2019s recent history right now? I\u2019m thinking of writers like Zakes Mda, Achmat Dangor, Troy Blacklaws, and Zoe Wicomb, among others. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I should confess that I\u2019m woefully under-read in South African fiction. But it seems obvious that there\u2019s been an explosion of local writing in the past fifteen years. A lot of these writers are dealing with \u201cthe past that\u2019s not past yet.\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s inevitable when any free expression was stifled while the past was actually unfolding. In any case, I think there\u2019s a common feeling that we need to break free from the past, and not just in a historical sense. Local writers are trying to escape a rigid set of moral gestures, if I can put it like that, which have imposed repetition upon us. Perhaps clich\u00e9 is nothing more than the weight of the past pinning down your mind. In this sense, imaginative freedom is a way of finding the future, though it isn&#8217;t so easy to do. <\/p>\n<p><strong>This is the second time you\u2019ve been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. How are you approaching it all this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, I\u2019m approaching it with the knowledge of how awful it all is, which will hopefully make it less awful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, I\u2019m curious about your writing life: I know in the past you\u2019ve spent large parts of the year traveling and writing in India (described in the book\u2019s final section, \u201cThe Guardian\u201d). What first drew you to India and have you managed to get much work done there?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I first went to India because of my interest in yoga, hoping to go to the Iyengar Centre in Pune for a while. That didn&#8217;t work out, but I ended up on a beach in Goa, writing. And for various reasons that was a good spot for me to work in, and I kept going back, often for six-month stretches. I wrote a lot of <em>The Good Doctor<\/em> and <em>The Impostor<\/em> there. I think the fact that it was far from South Africa helped to give me some perspective on the themes. In addition to which the warmth and good food and cheap prices, combined with total anonymity, were conducive to a creative state of mind. It became my \u201cother place\u201d for a while. Though I think that&#8217;s changed, alas, partly because of the events described in the third part of the book. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the unusually high praise of Rian Malan, author of My Traitor&#8217;s Heart and great doomsayer of South African letters, the work of novelist Damon Galgut occupies something of a vaunted position: \u201cIf there is a posterity, The Good Doctor will be seen as one of the great literary triumphs of South Africa\u2019s transition, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[1047,1048,1050,1049,163,87,75],"class_list":["post-6173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-damon-galgut","tag-india","tag-london","tag-man-booker-prize","tag-memory","tag-south-africa","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Damon Galgut by Anderson Tepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 11, 2010 \u2013 In the unusually high praise of Rian Malan, author of My Traitor&#8217;s Heart and great doomsayer of South African letters, the work of novelist Damon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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