A Memoir of Love and Literature

In the European tradition, Karina Szczurek celebrated her name day on Wednesday 2 August. It was a double celebration, in fact, as she had chosen the date to launch her memoir, The Fifth Mrs Brink, at the Book Lounge in Roeland Street, Cape Town. Published by Jonathan Ball, the book is an account of the year following the death of her husband, internationally acclaimed novelist André Brink, interwoven with Szczurek's life story and her relationship with Brink. This was a time of loss and mourning, catharsis and renewal: 'The only reason to write a memoir is to share something that might matter to other people,' she said. 'In order to reach out and connect, you have to make yourself almost unbearable vulnerable.'

Szczurek, whose family defected from Poland thirty years ago, led an itinerant life thereafter – the Italian refugee camp to which they were heading burnt down and they managed to cross the border into Austria. The family spent financially harsh years in the US, after which Szczurek studied in Austria and Wales.
They met in Vienna when Szczurek was a graduate student of South African literature. 'For me, meeting André was a homecoming on all levels,' she said.
After Brink's death in February 2015, the idea for a memoir simmered in her. But 'thinking about something doesn't mean doing it,' she said. Finally, sitting at a café, she ordered a drink and petitioned the universe. 'I thought, ”If I'm ever going to write this book, the first sentence needs to come to me now.'' And it came: “There is nothing like chocolate.” There can be no writing about André without mention of chocolate,' she said. The sentence was relocated during editing but served as her way in to the story.
In response to Book Lounge owner Mervyn Sloman's questions, Szczurek spoke of the personal meaning of writing. 'Those moments that are so ungraspable at a given time... When you try to grasp them and articulate them and communicate them to someone else, that's what writing is all about.' Memoir-writing also entails keeping some things to oneself: 'No-one is better at hiding among words than a writer,' she said.
No longer hearing Afrikaans spoken around her has been an unexpected loss. 'I missed it terribly. I still do.' These days she reads children's books in Afrikaans. 'It gives me pleasure to have Afrikaans around me. I speak it, but only to my cats.'
The Fifth Mrs Brink  is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek title, considering Brink once erroneously told an interviewer that Karina was his sixth wife (and Wikipedia indeed states he was married six times. The memoir is a tribute to a connection that lasted a decade in real life and endures in book form and in the heart of its author. Before leaving the stage, Szczurek held up a burgundy pen. 'Dark red was André's favourite colour. This was his favourite pen and I am using it to sign books tonight.'  

10 ways to find a winning short story concept

The Book Lounge in Cape Town's Roeland Street was packed last night at the launch of Incredible Journey, the 2015 Short Sharp Stories Award anthology curated by Joanne Hichens. Joanne, cultivator of sharp literary talent, interviewed the authors and discovered how they came by their story ideas on the prescribed theme, 'journeys'.

Mix up a few explosive ingredients. Young men, alcohol, a fast car on a Friday night: as Andrew Prior said of his story 'Terraplane Journey', 'with the right ingredients, things are  going to happen.' He acknowledged Stephen King's On Writing for teaching him the how of constructing a short story.

Mine the emotions of your past. In 'Pyramid of Light', Sean Mayne explored the paradox of having nostalgia for his apartheid-era army days while knowing, as he does now, that he was 'fighting on the wrong side'.

Hook into current issues. 'I was noticing the problem of homophobia in our society,' said Tebello Mzamo, who in 'My Room' followed the personal journey of a young gay man who moves from sleepy Lesotho to the Mother City.

Launch from a landscape that touches you. In his story 'Red Dust', Stephen Symons wrote about lives that intersect, with the unifying red dust of Africa figuratively covering them all. 'We as South Africans are all intimately connected to landscape,' he explained.

Choose a key symbol that draws characters together. In Bridget Pitt's 'The Infant Odysseus', it's a baby. 'An infant offers the possibility of engagement for people in a divided society,' she said.

Embellish a shocking or unusual tale you've heard. Dudumalingani Mqombothi, author of 'Memories we Lost', grew up in a village in the former Transkei where a family member had a mental illness and a sangoma (healer) claimed he could cure such conditions by baking the sufferer...

If a poem or true story haunts you, use it. Bongani Kona recalled reading a six-line poem entitled 'Requiem' in a poetry journal from a second-hand shop. 'I loved the way the final line of that poem echoed,' he said. That, and a report he read about two brothers who hadn't spoken in 25 years, combined to spark his story, 'At Your Requiem'.

Mix mythology with the modern. In 'Lift Club', Jumani Clarke used a car lift club journey to explore the classic idea of the soul's descent into the underworld.

Make notes, then distil them. Story award winner Andrew Salomon, an archaeologist, related how he started making notes of characters and conversations during his daily train trips to and from work. 'So much stuff happens in a carriage in a 24-minute journey; truth really is stranger than fiction,' he said. As for plot, 'it's much easier to note it down than to think it up.' To concentrate many quirky happenings into one train trip for his story 'Train 124', Andrew created a protagonist with a neuro-developmental disorder that causes one to focus intently on one's surroundings.

Don't force it. 'When a story doesn't work, allow something else to pop out,' said Joanne. Sean Mayne began with 'a guy with a body on a train' but abandoned it for the new idea that had appeared, inspired by his army days.

www.shortsharpstories.com