an exhilarating, playful and witty novel about writing, identity and literary KritiKs
(not to be confused with Krikits)
"From da kokroach point of view, humans are irrelvant. Kokroaches no like em. Doan want em. Do not even tink bout em. Doan care for deh conversations. Books we like to eat, not read. We wish humans dead so we can eat em too."
? Sizwe Bantu, The Cockroach Whisperer , 2010
Sizwe Bantu is the Greatest African Writer of All Time ? according to Timothy Turner, failed academic and lover, who not only lives by Bantu?s words but keeps a giant rubber cockroach in homage to the writer of the renowned ?cockroach stories?.
Inspired to travel to Bantu country, Timothy takes up a position at a university near the place rumoured to be the reclusive writer?s residence in the misty Zululand hills. Instead of drawing closer to his source of inspiration, Timothy is drawn into a Machiavellian world of campus politics and suppressed desire.
As Timothy grapples with the mystery surrounding Makaya, the academic he has replaced, and the demands of his students, particularly the attractive Tracey, he must confront his own paranoia, prejudice and insecurity in a search for the shocking truth.
Paul Williams?s memoir "Soldier Blue" won Book of the Year in South Africa, 2008 and his novel "The Secret of Old Mukiwa" won the Zimbabwe International Book Fair award for Young Adults in 2001. His educational readers have been set in schools across Africa and his stories and critical articles have been published in Meanjin, Text, Social Alternatives (Australia), Chicago Quarterly Review (USA), New Writing (UK) and New Contrast (South Africa). He has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin, USA, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
Ever since Don Quixote, novelists have been taking the piss. In "Cokcraco", Paul Williams does exactly that, turning the full beam of his satirical spotlight on the civil wars of university departments, the cultish bunkum of literary theory, the self-obsession of creative writing courses and the self-flagellation of white liberal guilt. In the process, Mr Williams also succeeds in poking fun at the conventions of the novel itself. "Cokcraco" reads like a collage of what one of its pompous academics would probably call discourses ? pseudo-scholarly footnotes, pseudo-scientific articles, pseudo-poems, pseudo-stories and a cod travel guide memorably called "Crowded Planet." This is a novel that does its best to defy classification. This is a novel that sets out to be a real genre-bender ? it?s at once a cross-cultural comedy of manners, a campus comedy transplanted to post-apartheid South Africa and a sly philosophical whodunit. So there is some serious fun to be had here, but with something darkly serious lurking under the lush tropical surface. In this country of gated communities and ubiquitous Kalashnikovs, violence never seems far away. The novel?s central character, an expat Australian academic called Timothy Turner, has braved the post-apartheid chaos and come to KwaZulu on a quest to find a renowned local writer whose diverse literary output celebrates the cockroach as an emblem of both oppression and resistance. This quest turns out to be a lot more than the ingenuous Dr Turner bargained for. By his side, the reader will encounter cockroaches in every incarnation under the sun ? as scientific marvel (surviving nuclear war and all that), as cultural marker (the rich don?t like them), as interior decoration (glued onto furniture as a kind of ornamental strip), as embodiment of the frustrated male ego (well, we all know who Gregor Samsa is), as narrative voice, as literary inspiration. The result is a strange, funny, intelligent and quite unforgettable novel. What Flaubert did for parrots, Mr Williams has done for the humble roach. ? Jeffrey Poacher, September 2013
"a brilliant satire of letters" -- Elizabeth McKenzie
"A strange, funny, intelligent and quite unforgettable novel. What Flaubert did for parrots, Mr Williams has done for the humble roach." ? Jeffrey Poacher
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