|
Moxyland takes over Cape Town
16/07/2008 10:51 - (SA)
|
|
|
 |
|
| The cover of the book, designed by Dale Halvorsen. (photo supplied) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Verashni Pillay
Cape Town - Genetically modified art, terrifying biotech police dogs and a ruthless corporate-apartheid government: this is a version of Cape Town you're glad is only fiction- we hope.
And with its very own dark soundtrack, ebook edition and toy merchandise, Moxyland is taking South Africa's literary scene by storm.
Lauren Beukes's dystopian thriller set in Cape Town in a technologically over-wrought future has all the makings of a cult classic. Even SA literary heavyweight André Brink says so.
Beukes has steadily gained a reputation as a writer of note in her twelve years as a journalist and more recently as a scriptwriter and now novelist.
Moxyland, began as a short story called Branded in SL magazine in 2004. Beukes extended the concept into a novel for her MA in Creative Writing under Brink, writing it with the help of a grant from the National Arts Council.
Characters you'll miss
The book is immediately engaging with it's four inter-connected narrators: characters so realistically crafted you'll miss hearing from them when you're done reading it.
The name refers to a children's video game featured in the novel, and acts as a metaphor for the glib but hyper-controlled society the characters live in.
"It's roguish trust-fund kid Toby's description for a saccharine online kids' game that turns out to be a far more brutal place than he expected," Beukes told News24. "It's the shiny, happy façade over a fundamentally damaged society, it's glossy celebrity culture and Hello Kitty and designer handbags distracting us from xenophobic attacks and rape in the DRC and genocide in Darfur."
But Beukes, who lives in Cape Town with her director husband, is wary of the "science fiction" label with its Star Trek associations. Cyberpunk is probably a more accurate description: a genre that features advanced technology coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
It's a style that Beukes shines in, allowing her to illustrate and explore the chronic social ills of society that she's all too familiar with from her work as a journalist.
Big themes
Growing inequality, corporate elitism, HIV/Aids and state control are followed to their logical end. But don't expect a sermon. This is sassy, funny and damn clever writing at its addictive best. Beukes (pictured left) works her particular brand of alchemy on these mega-themes, transforming reality into compelling fiction.
And it's all the more interesting for the altered elements you'll recognise from our world. Everyone carries a cell phone, but these double up as a form of control allowing the Saps to deliver electric shocks to keep citizens in line. Clifton's beaches are reserved for the corporate elite, Eskom adopts and trains Aids orphans and company sponsored artists are injected with nano-chemicals leaving them literally addicted to the product.
But it's not just our world that makes its way into Moxyland. The book has extended beyond the borders of its written page. A range of Moxy mutant toys were produced by a collective of unemployed women in the Klein Karoo (pictured below) and have been selling like hotcakes since the book's launch on 25 April 2008 (that event, like all things Moxy, was larger than life with characters and scenes straight out of the book).
And African Dope Records have just released the Moxyland soundtrack; songs selected by Beukes which range from rock and electro to glitch and indie. It features artists like The Tone Deaf Junkies, Sibot, Mr Gelatine and Taxi Violence.
Multimedia
"I think it's important for writers to think in terms of multimedia," says Beukes, who is expecting her first child. "The world we live in isn't limited to one format. It's not about flashy gimmicks, but about ways of elaborating on the story and playing with other possibilities."
Beukes is currently head scriptwriter and one of the creators of critically acclaimed science fiction animated television series, URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika. She is immersing herself in her new novel, Pale Crocodile Waiting, in between working on a collaborative project with award-winning South African writers: Diane Awerbuck, Mary Watson and Henrietta Rose-Innes.
The four represent a good sample of a new breed of South African women writers who are creating the kind of fiction that everyone wants to read. The local literary scene has never been more alive.
Click here to read an extract on the book's website.
Click here to order Moxyland now.
|
