Getting under the skin of apartheid

Born in 1935, Andr Brink is one of South Africa’s most distinguished writers and a key figure in the modernisation of the Afrikaans novel. His books — including his most famous, “A Dry White Season” (1979) — have explored varied themes, among them South Africa’s colonial history and apartheid legacy. His 21st novel, “Philida”, has been longlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize. He lives in Cape Town with his wife, Karina.

The eponymous protagonist in “Philida” is a 19th-century slave living on a farm in South Africa’s Western Cape run by your ancestors. How hard was it to write in her voice?

On the one hand, extremely difficult. On the other, imagining yourself into the skin, life, thoughts of another human being is really what a writer does from the first moment. There was a particular audacity and cheek involved as a white person in imagining yourself into the skin of a black woman but over so many years, the coming together of black and white has entered so deeply into my subconscious that perhaps the effort did not need to be too extreme.

You fictionalise some of your own family history in the book and there are passages where you describe Philida being physically abused by your own forebears. How did that affect you?

Very deeply. I was only too aware at every step of the way what dangerous territory I was treading on. It made the challenge huge. At the same time, there was a very deep and peculiar sense of fulfilment.

You explore long-term relationships between Afrikaner masters and their slaves. How much was this based on fact? It happened to an amazing extent. To me, one of the discoveries of writing the book was that for so many years, the idea of racial purity became so deeply embedded under apartheid that one got the impression that this kind of miscegenation was the exception rather than the rule. It was astounding to discover how much it was the rule, rather than the exception.

Has South Africa come to terms with its apartheid legacy?

We are still at a very difficult stage, trying to battle through. I went to a conference in Oklahoma a few years ago and it was one of the most remarkable experiences because I was surrounded by present-day white Americans who were becoming more interested in the miscegenation in their own families. They almost took pride in it, vying with one another to expose the extent to which their own families had this experience. We are not quite there yet in South Africa but it is happening more and more.

Rian Malan, another writer of Afrikaner descent, struggled with his heritage in his memoir, “My Traitor’s Heart”. You were raised by Afrikaner nationalist parents: did you face a similar personal crisis?

On the whole, my approach to it has always been much more positive, in the sense of discovering new and wonderful things, rather than feeling animosity shoot up all around me. I have never been a Rian Malan fan because he has got such a bleak and black outlook on the world and that has not been my experience. Even though my father [a magistrate] was a staunch supporter of apartheid, he had a very deep-rooted sense of right and wrong... He had very interesting contrasts within him as a person.

I am not so sure he would have liked it very much. My mother would have loved it. She was always interested on a purely human level and concerned with the humanity of the individual and not, as my father was, in the political divisions between people.

Do you feel you have achieved what you set out to do as a writer?

It is such a difficult question to answer. In a very deep and personal sense, I feel it is worth it. But as T.S. Eliot put it: “Every attempt/ Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure.” That, too, can be turned into a positive experience because every time I finish a book and I think, “No, I haven’t been able to achieve what I wanted”, that gives me more reason to try again.

You have been married six times. What is your policy on allowing spouses to read what you are writing?