Roger Smith’s Cape Town ain’t gonna look like the tourism board’s version. Against the stunning natural beauty and across town from the wealthy districts, in Cape Flats life is cheap and over far too quickly for far too many. The harsh realities of life in the slums of South Africa’s second most populous city are the fertile ground Smith tills for fiction. The complexities of history, geo-politics, and racial predestination boil down to a collection of do-or-die moments for the residents, some trapped there, some seeking refuge, some enslaved and others ruling with absolute power, who act out their part in these tales with the stunning clarity of those caught in permanent survival mode.
From an interview in Crimeculture conducted by novelist Dave Zeltserman: You portray the Cape Flats as a violent hell-hole where death is cheap for everyone. Is it as bad as you portray it, or worse?
Roger Smith: Worse. (I’ve) been amused by some of the responses to my depiction of Cape Town from the city’s elite, as if I’ve just gone and slapped the prettiest girl at the party! Cape Town is not a mellow, temperate spot. It bakes and blows and burns in summer. The sea rages and the city floods in winter. And two thirds of the population live on the flipside of the Cape Town picture postcard—the Cape Flats—which is about as violent a place as you’ll find outside of a war zone… I don’t write about anything that doesn’t happen every day in South Africa. I loathe the comic book porno-violence of a lot of European and U.S. crime writing (and movies, TV and video games, for that matter) where bloodshed is used to titillate. People aren’t turned on by what I write—they’re shocked. As they should be.
(Read the rest of the interview here)
(And another great interview with Spinetingler's Keith Rawson here)
The devastating effects of poverty, exploitation, gang and prison life are explored up close with a tone of compassion and moral outrage without ever slackening the pace of break-neck-speed thrillers. The setting is vivid, (I’d say I could literally smell the place), the violence visceral and the multi-character structures serve to expand the stories and deepen the characters without over-complicating them and dragging down these quickly ingested, slowly digested books.
Smith's third book is coming soon and a film adaptation of Mixed Blood is said to be in development with Phillip Noyce at the helm and Samuel L. Jackson in the role of detective Disaster Zondi. I feel pretty secure saying that Roger Smith’s work is going to be relevant and influential for decades.
Is South Africa going to be the new hot spot for crime fiction?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
