All but one of my thrillers have Yudel Gordon as the central character. Down the years, many people have asked me on whom I based him. Usually I’ve tried to avoid the question. The truth is that he is an amalgamation of three real men, all of them psychologists, and
For decades serious South African writers wrote largely about the ways Apartheid affected themselves and their countrymen. It was such a singular system, it contained so many aspects and such powerful material emerged from it, that it was impossible to ignore. Then came 1994 and for all of us everything
Apart from only Klara’s Visitors, all my novels have been set in South Africa. This is not unusual among novelists from any country. Writers set their stories against backgrounds that they understand and have experienced. Among South African writers this is particularly true. When you live in a country as
This is the story behind the writing Of The Robben Island List by Wessel Ebersohn Pretty much in the centre of Table Bay, overlooked by Table Mountain, one of the seven wonders of the world, just ten kilometres from Cape Town, lies a small island with a sad history. Over the
This is the story of the writing Divide The Night. This book, like almost all my books are based on fictionalised true events and real people. And this is the story behind the story. A kilometre or less from the small apartment Miriam and I occupied in Joubert Park, Johannesburg,
Which are the Top 10 Books of the 20th Century, and do they measure up to the top books of all time? The answer is largely a matter of taste. There will never be agreement even of the criteria you should use in judging them. And judging itself is a