The worst part of life on the Springbok Vlakte is the second half of winter. There is no rain whatever and the sun is a merciless tyrant, terrorising humans, burning the leaves off plants and turning the ground beneath your feet to dust.
Spring is a different matter entirely. It starts with the first rainfall, not on a particular date. And the world changes. While temperatures are officially still warmer, the moisture that descends on everything keeps the ground underfoot damp and the sun seems to be friendly rather than tyrannical. The landscape turns from brown to green.
With the gentler, sweeter surroundings my inclination turns to writing. Two years ago, it was this change of climate, landscape and state of mind that got me started on DELUGE, my most recent novel.
Conceiving DELUGE was not easy for me. By the time I started to write I already knew I wanted to interweave two stories, one set in the present time and the other in times past of the old South Africa. Drawing the two together was the challenge and had to be undertaken.
The story set in the present day concerns a lost soul that plans the most horrifying act, not of vengeance for the country he feels he has lost, but because he feels he cannot continue under present circumstances. The other story is set in a community both on the other side of the country and on the other side of the South African social divide. As the change from one power structure to another approaches, an entire group is desperate, but in this case a horrifying act, almost as frightful as the other, has already taken place and the community is desperate to avoid its consequences.
The two stories are radically different, but the state of minds that bring them about have many similarities. I worked long and hard on the structure that would reveal their similarities and also bring the old and newer versions of South Africa into a single tale.
Read more about DELUGE and Yudel Gordon here.
The Events that Inspired DELUGE
Reflections on my new thriller – DELUGE
DELUGE Available here
