BEYOND BORDERS
We chat to author & foodie Marita van der Vyver on life in France, and the controversy around her latest novel, Borderline
Although Marita van der Vyver is mostly seen as an Afrikaans writer, her books have been translated into English, German, French, Mandarin and even Icelandic – and are read all over the world. Her latest work delves into the psychological damage caused by the Border War – from South Africa to Cuba. We met up with her to talk about her work, her life in France and the controversy surrounding Borderline.
Marita van der Vyver has been living in France for 20 years, so when she’s back in SA, she likes to seek out a little bit of ‘home’. ‘My friend Naretha Ricome, who is also an Afrikaans woman married to a Frenchman, always invites me to stay at her company’s wine farm when I’m in the Western Cape,’ she says. L’Avenir Country Lodge describes itself as ‘authentically South African with a touch of French’ – which is probably why Marita feels right at home here.
Marita actually started out as a young adult fiction writer but really made a name for herself with her controversial novel, Griet Skryf ’n Sprokie (Entertaining Angels) back in 1992. Despite drawing the ire of conservative readers for its explicit sex scenes, it became a bestseller, was reprinted several times and was awarded the M-Net, ATKV and Eugène Marais prizes.
‘I still have people coming up to me to tell me how they had a “secret copy”,’ she says with a laugh.
Today, she’s written more than a dozen novels as well as short stories and essays. She’s also branched out into radio plays, film scripts and shorter pieces about food and her life in Provence.
She met her husband, Alain Claisse, during a sabbatical year in the south of France, and relocated there permanently in 1999, before they married. Two decades ago they settled in Provence with their four children: Alain’s sons, Thomas and Hugo, her son, Daniel, and their daughter, Mia. On her life in Provence, she says: ‘All in all, I feel very fortunate because it’s a country where food, wine and living are taken very seriously.’
In fact, food is so important there that they teach children the importance of leisurely lunches from an early age. ‘When my daughter was three, her school canteen served four courses –
a starter, a main, a cheese course and dessert.’
Imetup with Marita at L’Avenir, where she was spending time to promote her latest book, Grensgeval, (translated into English as Borderline ).Init, Marita looks at the effects of the 23-year Border War between South Africa and the SA and US-funded UNITA movement, and the Angolan government, which was supported by Cuban forces.
At the beginning of the novel we meet Theresa, who’s just learnt that her ex-husband, Theo, has passed away. She finds herself unable to mourn someone who hasn’t been in her life for years – he'd spent the past 20 years in a mental hospital.
‘… the psychological damage… left a generation of men with these invisible wounds that never go away.’
Theresa comes across a box of his old belongings from when he was in the Border War as a teenager, and finds his journal from that time. Inside it, she discovers a blood-stained letter written by a Cuban soldier (who most likely died at the hands of a young Theo) and addressed to his child.
Hoping to find some way to lay the past to rest, Theresa decides to go to Cuba to deliver the letter to the soldier’s daughter, who is now likely to be in her forties.
Similar to her protagonist, Marita was a teenager in the ’70s when her brothers, cousins, friends and classmates were being sent off to ‘fight communism’. Conscripts were told they were protecting our borders from the ‘Red danger’, that would ‘rape our women’ and ‘burn our churches’. ‘What always upset me was that secret part of the war in the ’70s,’ says Marita. ‘These young boys were fighting in another country and their mothers didn’t even know.’
As a white teenager, she was living in a fool’s paradise. But, she says, when what was really happening was disclosed and it came out that the government had been deceiving the people of South Africa, it was the moment her own disillusionment with the Apartheid government made itself felt.
Marita had wanted to write about the Border War for some time, and touched on it in her 1994 novel, Die Dinge van ‘n Kind (Childish Things). ‘I always felt that I wasn’t done with it, and as the years went by I realised the extent of the psychological damage. It left a generation of men with these invisible wounds that never go away.’
She spoke to friends who had fought in the war. Now in their sixties, it was evident how their families had suffered. They were clearly dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but it had never been recognised.
Marita also knows what it’s like to live with someone with mental health problems. Her first husband, David Bishop, in whose memory Borderline was written, was institutionalised for bipolar disorder and other psychological conditions (most likely also stemming from his time on the border) and eventually died while still under medical care. ‘When I started writing, I thought I could write about someone with mental health problems, having lived with someone with mental health problems. I know what it’s like to cut yourself off from that – and the guilt you feel. But I wasn’t connecting his experience with the Border War, because we never spoke about that,’ she says.
She was also interested in the Cubans’ side of the story.
‘South Africans and Cubans were killing each other in a third country that didn’t actually mean anything to either of them.’
Marita went to Havana, and what struck her was that Cubans were also still dealing with the after-effects of the Border War. ‘It’s universal. My French fatherin-law fought in the Algerian War, and even though he didn’t have to shoot at anybody, he could never speak about it,’ she says. He passed away recently, but she recalls that once a year he would get together with other former soldiers: ‘They would probably drink far too much, then share the stories that nobody else could understand.’
Marita’s hope for the book is that it will help the older generation come to terms with what happened to them, and for the younger generation to understand what it meant. One thing is certain: she has hit a nerve. ‘I knew of people for whom the Border War is still an issue, that’s why I had to write about it. But the response has blown me away.’
In one of her first interviews on Cape Talk, two listeners texted in their experiences. One said that at 60, he still has dark memories of his time on the border; the other was just 16 when her 19-year-old best friend killed himself after returning from Angola.
Marita has also realised that some still glorify the war. Within days of the book’s release, she started receiving hate mail on Facebook. The messages ranged from scornful to threatening: that she, as a woman, had no right to criticise the war; that they would make sure that her book never sells; that she may think they are old, but they ‘still know tricks’; and that she and her publisher should ‘beware’. When Netwerk24 posted an interview with her online, along with an excerpt from the book, one commenter threatened to shoot her, and the journalist who interviewed her, on sight.
‘Obviously, they haven’t read the book,’ says Marita. ‘I’m not spreading a message that I hate the men who fought in the Border War – it’s exactly the opposite: I’m trying to understand what they went through.’
When Netwerk24 posted an interview with her along with an excerpt from the book online, one commenter threatened to shoot her, and the journalist who interviewed her, on sight.
Though only a small percentage of people are responding negatively to the book, she was shocked at how strong their feelings were: ‘It proves that we’re not done with it. There is still a lot of emotion there, and I hope this book will help with that.’
When Marita isn’t writing, she’s hosting tour groups. ‘A tour guide friend suggested we get a small group together so I could teach them about the food and wine of Provence,’ she says.’ Her ‘Proe Provence’ tours exploded, and soon they were branching out to new destinations. ‘I set Die Blou van Onthou (Forget-MeNot-Blues) in Portugal and fans wanted us to do a book tie-in tour.’
And, when she needed to go to Cuba to research her novel, her travel agent (Kitty of Rufaro Destination Management) suggested they make it a ‘Discover Cuba with Marita van der Vyver’ tour. Their next adventure sees them in India, with the focus on Indian and English writers (and, of course, the flavours of the country). ‘We’re calling it “A Passage to India”,’ says Marita.