If you want to know the truth about a society, read its crime fiction

The delightful Annetjie van Wynegaard from BooksLive recently interviewed me on my psychological thriller for adults Dark Whispers and its Afrikaans twin, Skadustemme. You can read the full English (Part 1) interview here, but I've posted some excerpts below.

On the translation process:

How involved were you in the translation process and what did you learn?

My editor very kindly involved me and I suspect that I made a great nuisance of myself with all my comments and suggestions, although I do think I added some value with some of the more technical psychological aspects. I learned that the translated work cannot be an identical version of the original. It will inevitably have a different voice and feel to it, and that’s okay. Letting go and trusting your translator and editor is an act of great faith, but I was in such good hands with the award-winning Elsa Silke who did a fabulous job. I also learned some excellent Afrikaans words that I never knew before!

Were there certain things that you found easier or more difficult to portray in Afrikaans?

There were subtleties of language, particularly in the accounts of the therapy sessions, that were difficult to translate. There are words in English that carry different connotations and emotional loadings to their Afrikaans counterparts, and simply don’t translate well. At one point, the translator, my editor and I were all completely stumped because in one of the story’s hypnotic inductions, the word “patient” carries the dual meanings of being unhurried plus being the person on the operating table, and we could not find an Afrikaans equivalent. It’s a critical part of the story and in the end I had to write a different section for the Afrikaans version. We also took a while to come up with the right title in Afrikaans.

On maintaining tension:

Skadustemme isn’t a whodunit, in fact we know the villain almost from the start, yet we remain terrified throughout. How did you maintain that tension?

I’m delighted to hear it! As a reader, I don’t find many of the elements of crime and thriller novels exciting – car chases, shoot-outs and fist-fights just don’t do it for me. I guess I’m more brain than brawn. So as a writer in this genre, I wanted a much more intimate kind of violence – a verbal cat-and-mouse game between characters with sparring intellects and competing values. I like to examine the inner battle within the individual psyche, too. I believe that the minute, microscopic view of interactions can create tension as well as imminent explosions or threatened murders. I tend to think that the “whydunit” is more interesting than whodunit anyway, and when you can’t see how it’s all going to end – that creates excitement for the reader.

Trotteur’s slogan “Dokter weet die beste” (Doctor knows best) emphasises how trusting we are of people in positions of power. How is the crime novel a good medium for subverting skewed power relations?

If you want to know the truth about a society, read its crime fiction, because this is where you see how the most vulnerable members of that society are treated. Perhaps because of my day job, I see very clearly that dangerous power imbalances are most likely to occur in our homes and in contexts we like to believe are safe. As a reader, it’s easy to separate oneself from the serial killer “out there”, but when the person who malevolently intends you harm is your doctor, and you’re going to be unconscious while he has you totally in his power – that’s scary!

The unconscious patient is also a metaphor for how we tend to accept what we’re told by authority figures and how we blindly put our trust in people and institutions who are at best fallible and, at worst, deeply flawed.

Some more about me, personally (in Afrikaans):

In ’n neutedop, wie is Joanne Macgregor?

Ek is ’n skrywer, ’n sielkundige in die private praktyk, ’n opleier in die sakewêreld, ’n moeder en vrou, en ’n eksentrieke. Een van die redes waarom ek lief is om stories te skryf is omdat dit my toelaat om baie lewens en persoonlikhede in my kop en my hart te ervaar.

Wat is jou belangstellings buiten skryf?

Ek is nogal ’n goeie tuiskok. Ek is altyd besig om nuwe kombuisvaardighede te bemeester, soos om suurdeegbrood te bak met “wilde gis”, my eie kimchi (’n Koreaanse kooldis) te fermenteer, jogurt te maak, of geurige pesto voor te berei van die bosse basieliekruid wat in my tuin groei. Ek het ‘n florerende organiese kruie- en groentetuin, wat met erdwurmtee gevoed word en ek sien uit daarna om my eerste reuse bos pienk knoffel volgende jaar te oes.

Please read the full part 2 Afrikaans interview - including my tips for new writers - at BooksLive, here.