shaunrandol
Reader
reviewer Min? Venter was only halfway impressed with this novel, says the author's reliance on violence to carry the story is just too much for the reader to bear. Interesting take on a book that won the 2007-08 EU Literary Award!
In her debut novel, Till We Can Keep an Animal (2009), Megan Voysey-Braig grapples with issues surrounding violence and its aftermath in a country desperately struggling to make sense of the brutality witnessed and experienced daily by each and every individual. After winning the EU Literary Award for best unpublished novel (2007/8), award judges Craig MacKenzie and Darryl Accone described this newcomer as “soft-spoken and introspective, but also articulate and brave.”1
Voysey-Braig says her novel was written from the shame and sadness that exists in South Africa:
I wanted to pose questions. We love our grandmothers and grandfathers, our families, but why did they perpetuate the system, to make apartheid work and flourish? That’s what I explore in the manuscript, the cruelty that has always existed in South Africa, the violence over 400 years. We see the symptoms of it throughout. To me, there’s a dignity that has never existed. Nobody was ever seen as a person in their own right. People were treated abhorrently because of their skin colour. It’s a continuing cycle of violence, disrespect and a loss of love.
Declaring that Till We Can Keep an Animal represents a psychological history of South Africa that engages the implications of generations of abuse, Voysey-Braig claims that, “genetic memory gets passed on. You keep the anger your grandfather felt about being treated with injustice. Even though you have different opportunities, you inherit that landscape.” Described by the author herself as a dreary and depressing read, this novel is written with the aim of breaking the sense of responsibility: “I played a part in this. I perpetuated it. What can I do to stop it, to make it better now?” According to Mackenzie, Voysey-Braig wrote from a sense of wanting to apologize and correct that which needs to be repaired in order for South Africans to successfully move forward. Or at least, [T]hat’s what the book hopes for.”
Read the rest of the review here: An Opportunity Missed | The Mantle
In her debut novel, Till We Can Keep an Animal (2009), Megan Voysey-Braig grapples with issues surrounding violence and its aftermath in a country desperately struggling to make sense of the brutality witnessed and experienced daily by each and every individual. After winning the EU Literary Award for best unpublished novel (2007/8), award judges Craig MacKenzie and Darryl Accone described this newcomer as “soft-spoken and introspective, but also articulate and brave.”1
Voysey-Braig says her novel was written from the shame and sadness that exists in South Africa:
I wanted to pose questions. We love our grandmothers and grandfathers, our families, but why did they perpetuate the system, to make apartheid work and flourish? That’s what I explore in the manuscript, the cruelty that has always existed in South Africa, the violence over 400 years. We see the symptoms of it throughout. To me, there’s a dignity that has never existed. Nobody was ever seen as a person in their own right. People were treated abhorrently because of their skin colour. It’s a continuing cycle of violence, disrespect and a loss of love.
Declaring that Till We Can Keep an Animal represents a psychological history of South Africa that engages the implications of generations of abuse, Voysey-Braig claims that, “genetic memory gets passed on. You keep the anger your grandfather felt about being treated with injustice. Even though you have different opportunities, you inherit that landscape.” Described by the author herself as a dreary and depressing read, this novel is written with the aim of breaking the sense of responsibility: “I played a part in this. I perpetuated it. What can I do to stop it, to make it better now?” According to Mackenzie, Voysey-Braig wrote from a sense of wanting to apologize and correct that which needs to be repaired in order for South Africans to successfully move forward. Or at least, [T]hat’s what the book hopes for.”
Read the rest of the review here: An Opportunity Missed | The Mantle
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