My first thanks go to the brilliant Kerri Kolen, who saw enough potential in three sample chapters to allow me to write this novel. I’m incredibly grateful to her for not only giving my first book a home, but for allowing me to continue doing what I love best. She’s the best fairy godmother a writer could have.
Then, a great big thank-you goes to my amazing publisher, Putnam. I’m so proud to be a part of the Putnam family and can’t believe how lucky I am to have such incredible people in my corner. Thank you to Danielle Dieterich, my wonderful editor, who took a mess of a first draft and shaped it into something I’m incredibly proud of. Her insight and guidance were invaluable and it was an absolute joy working with her.
I am forever indebted to: Ivan Held, Christine Ball, Sally Kim, Alexis Welby, Ashley Pattison McClay, Lauren Monaco, Emily Ollis, Madeline Schmitz, Brennin Cummings, as well as the Design and Production departments, my copy editor, Chandra Wohleber, all the Penguin Random House Sales consultants, the Foreign Rights division, and everyone else who had a hand in bringing this book to life and then distributing it. Katie McKee is the best PR person an author could ever wish for. Seriously, the world would be an infinitely better and kinder place if Katie were in charge of running it. Katie for president! Jordan Aaronson is an absolute delight and I’m so grateful to her for being such an amazing champion and for all her hard work. Thanks to Kaitlin Kall for designing another fabulous cover. Thanks as well to my awesome Penguin Random House Canadian team: Bonnie Maitland, Christina Vecchiato, Sam Church (Ruinsky), and Emma Ingram just to name a few.
Booksellers, librarians, book bloggers, and bookstagrammers are some of my favorite people, and I couldn’t do what I do without their amazing support. Their passion for reading ensures that books find their way into the right hands, and I can’t thank them enough for that or for being such a wonderfully supportive community. Thanks especially to Scott Pardon and Courtney Calder for all their phenomenal cheerleading.
A great big thank-you goes to my phenomenal agent, Cassandra Rogers of The Rights Factory, for never giving up on me, and for all that she does to make my career possible. Thanks as well to Olga Filina for her great big heart and excellent editorial brain. I can’t sing Cass’s and Olga’s praises loudly enough.
Thanks to Melusi Tshabalala of “Melusi’s Everyday Zulu” fame for being a superb sensitivity reader and helping me get the Zulu language and culture right. Follow him on Facebook and buy his hilarious and educational book—you won’t be sorry that you did! Thanks to Shayne Broomberg and Brett Uys for their technical advice with regards to farming, generators, and power stations. Thanks to Walter G. Speirs for answering questions about Scottish dialect; Tracey du Preez and Maureen Mokoena for answering medical questions; Izak Furstenburg for helping with Afrikaans translations; Liezel Klopper and Lynne Harrison for farming-life information; and Danielle De Grooth for designing a kick-ass map. All mistakes were my own!
I’m so lucky to have the best writing groups a writer could ask for. Thank you to Lisa Rivers, Kath Jonathan, Jenny Prior, Caroline Gill, Emily Murray, Susie Whelehan, and Suzy Dugard for sharing so generously, championing so passionately, and pouring the wine when all else fails. I cannot overstate how invaluable their feedback is or what an integral part of my writing process they are. Lisa, thank you especially for all the parties you’ve thrown for me and for your brilliant editorial contributions. You are an angel.
I have been blessed with so many wonderful friends and such an amazing family that it’s impossible to thank them all individually. Their endless support and encouragement have meant more to me than they could ever know, and I can only hope that I’ve expressed my gratitude to each of them for being a part of my life and for brightening my days. Leana Marais, thank you for buying enough copies of Hum If You Don’t Know the Words to sink a battleship. To my nieces, nephews, and godchildren, thank you for not being too embarrassed by me and for constantly rearranging bookshelves so my books are always front and center. Charmaine Shepherd, you remain both my rock and my guiding light; my kindred spirit and my hero.
Thank you to everyone in my life for buying countless books and then forcing them on everyone they know, and for always coming out in support at book fairs, readings, events, and bookstores.
I am so grateful to my readers and to book clubs who have been so gracious and kind, and who have welcomed me into their homes either in person or virtually. It’s such a joy to get to speak with fellow readers and to listen to their feedback and brilliant insights. I write to make sense of my world, but it’s my readers who teach me the most about my work! I can be reached at [email protected] to set up a book club Skype appointment.
Thanks to Muggle for taking me on regular walks and to Wombat for all the “acupuncture.”
Finally, my biggest thanks goes to my husband, Stephen, who doesn’t allow me to take anything too seriously and whose favorite joke reflects his general silliness: “You know how when you see ducks flying in a ‘V,’ how the one side of the ‘V’ is always longer than the other? Do you know why that is? It’s because there are more ducks on that side.”
Thanks for always making me laugh, Poodle, and for being you.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC): a political party banned during apartheid; the ruling party of South Africa since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president
AFRIKAANS: a language derived from the form of Dutch brought to the Cape by white settlers from Holland in the seventeenth century
AFRIKANER: an Afrikaans-speaking South African with European ancestry, generally descended from the Dutch/French Huguenot settlers of the seventeenth century
AFRIKANER WEERSTANDSBEWEGING (AWB): a South African neo-Nazi separatist political and paramilitary organization
AMADLOZI: (Zulu) the ancestors
BABYGRO: an infant bodysuit, onesie
BAKKIE: (Afrikaans) pickup truck, utility truck
BOER: (Afrikaans) a farmer/proud Afrikaner
BOEREKOS: (Afrikaans) Afrikaner/farmer food
BOREHOLE: a deep hole bored into the ground to locate water
BUSHVELD: open, uncultivated land of South Africa, abundant shrubby, or thorny vegetation
DASSIES: (Afrikaans) a rock hyrax (mammal) of Southern Africa
DOEK: a square piece of cloth like a scarf worn by African women to cover their head
DOMINEE: (Afrikaans) preacher, minister
GOGO/UGOGO: (various African languages) granny
HHAYI: (Zulu) stop, no
HINJA: (Zulu) dog
IBHAYI: (Zulu) animal skin or material worn by healers
INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY (IFP): a right-wing political party in South Africa that has been led, since its founding, by Mangosuthu Buthelezi
IZINYANGA: (Zulu) plural: healers
JIRRE: (Afrikaans slang) “Jesus”; exclamation of surprise or shock
KAFFIR: an offensive and contemptuous term for a black person
KAFFIR-BOETIE: translates to “kaffir brother”; a term for a white person who fraternizes with black people or sympathizes with their cause
KAK: (Afrikaans) shit
KNOBKERRIE: (Afrikaans) walking stick
KOTA: township or street food; quarter loaf of bread hollowed out and filled mostly with chips, meat, and gravy
KWAAI: (Afrikaans slang) “cool”
KWAITO: a music genre that emerged in Johannesburg in the 1990s. Variant of house music, most popular with black South African youth.
LOBOLO: (Zulu) bride price
MAHEWU: (Zulu) fermented liquid mealie-meal porridge
MEVROU: (Afrikaans) missus
MIELIES: (Afrikaans) corn cob, sweet corn
MIESIE: (Afrikaans) missus
MLUNGU/UMLUNGU: (Xhosa, Zulu) a white person
MOROGO: wild spinach
MPEPHO/IMPEPHO: (
Zulu) sage
MZUKULU WAMI: (Zulu) “my granddaughter”
NAPPY: a diaper
NDUMBA/INDUMBA: (Zulu) a healing hut
NOG: (Afrikaans) another
NYANGA/INYANGA: (Zulu) a healer
PANTSULA: petty gangster
PAP: a traditional South African dish made from ground maize that is then cooked with water
POLONY: processed meat
REGTIG: (Afrikaans) really, truly
ROOIBOS: translates to “red bush”; a South African tea
SANGOMA/ISANGOMA: (Zulu) a witch doctor, healer, traditional healer
SAWUBONA: (Zulu) “hello” or “good day”
SESHOESHOE: a printed, dyed cotton fabric widely used in traditional clothing in South Africa
SHEBEEN: an illicit African bar or nightclub where alcohol is served without a license
SHOSHOLOZA: a Nguni song that was sung by the mixed tribes of gold and diamond mine workers in South Africa
SISI: (Xhosa) sister
SLAP CHIPS: South African version of French fries with bigger and thicker cut potatoes that are still soft inside after frying
SLET: (Afrikaans) slut
TAKKIES: (Afrikaans) sneakers
TUISNYWERHUIDS: (Afrikaans) home-industry business
U: IsiZulu article, similar to “the”
UMUTHI: (Zulu) medicine, herbal medicine
UNDLELA ZIMHLOPHE: (Xhosa) African dream root plant used for vivid dreams
UNJANI: (Zulu) “How are you?”
VOORKAMER: (Afrikaans) translates to “front room”; a formal lounge for guests
YOH: (black South African) exclamation of surprise, shock, or sympathy
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The canned-lion-hunting industry is unfortunately not a product of my imagination. While South Africa is a beautiful tourist destination that I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to visit, please think twice before cuddling, petting, or volunteering with lions or their cubs.
Very few of the private lion parks or predator breeding facilities in South Africa can be considered to be genuine conservation undertakings, as they breed predators for a variety of commercial purposes, like canned-lion hunting, where tame or captive-bred predators are shot in confined areas.
There is no conservation value in captive-bred lions, since none of them have ever been successfully reintroduced into the wild, and yet this industry attracts thousands of misguided volunteers from across the world who contribute in excess of $100,000 a month to it.
Very few, if any, of the lion cubs that tourists and volunteers get to pet or cuddle have been abandoned in the wild; they are simply getting the cubs used to humans so that they lose all fear, which makes them easier to shoot.
If you would like to learn more about this industry, there is an excellent documentary called Blood Lions that I recommend watching. The website is www.bloodlions.org. Please consider contributing to their very worthy cause.
* * *
• • •
The AIDS pandemic in South Africa in the late ’90s and early 2000s was devastating. The then–South African president, Thabo Mbeki, went on record stating that “a virus cannot cause a syndrome” (implying HIV cannot cause AIDs), and his AIDs denialism had catastrophic consequences, with more than 300,000 South Africans dying.
The people worst hit by the pandemic were women and children. Besides the thousands that passed away, it fell to the women who remained (many of them grandmothers who were living in desperate poverty) to care for the HIV-positive orphans left in the wake of the crisis.
I first heard about the Stephen Lewis Foundation during my years of volunteering in Soweto. Their support of the grannies/gogos of South Africa through their Grandmother to Grandmothers Campaign has been life-changing for many of these women, and I am indebted to them for what they and their volunteers have already done, and continue to do, for my countrywomen.
Please visit them at www.stephenlewisfoundation.org and consider contributing to their brilliant cause.
* * *
• • •
Mandla’s story was inspired by Nkosi Johnson, a child living with AIDS in South Africa, who passed away at the age of twelve in 2001. Nkosi was legally adopted by a white woman, Gail Johnson, when his own mother, Nonthlanthla Daphne Nkosi, became too ill to care for him. Nkosi’s activism inspired me to volunteer with HIV-positive children and his story is both heartbreaking and incredibly uplifting. We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy’s Courage and A Mother’s Love by Jim Wooten is a must-read.
The character of Ruth was inspired by a real South African woman, Glenda Kemp, who began stripping in the early 1970s with her pet python, “Oupa.” Her book, Glenda Kemp: Snake Dancer, is an interesting read.
* * *
• • •
I first became aware of Factor V Leiden when my brother-in-law, Louis Marais, passed away from a pulmonary embolism at the age of thirty-nine in 2007. It was only after Louis’s death that the family became aware of the genetic mutation and had everyone tested for it. I firmly believe that Louis saved the lives of his brothers and father, who now know their risk factors and medicate accordingly, and I wanted to pay tribute to him in the writing of this story. I know that Louis would have loved Ruth just as she would have adored him.
* * *
• • •
The area where Riaan van Tonder volunteers in the novel has since been named the Cradle of Humankind. It was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1999 and is a fascinating part of the country to visit.
You can find out more information at www.thecradleofhumankind.net.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bianca Marais is the author of Hum If You Don't Know the Words. She holds a certificate in creative writing from the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies, where she now teaches creative writing. Before turning to writing, she started a corporate training company and volunteered with Cotlands, where she assisted care workers in Soweto with providing aid for HIV/AIDS orphans. Originally from South Africa, she now resides in Toronto with her husband.
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If You Want to Make God Laugh Page 35