Life in the Inner-city
- Lauren Beukes (South Africa)
- Aziz Hassim (South Africa)
- Facilitator: Achille Mbembe

Discussion on life in the inner city gives to rise many questions of culture and diversity regarding the evolution of the inner city.  When considering urban fiction one asks  “Is urban fiction showing a re-emergence of culture?” Stories have always been shared since the beginning of time, for their entertainment valued and in an emotional investment from the reader due to his/her imaginative participation.

How does the new body of fiction transcend the boundaries of old fiction, is there a literary evolution on some aspects. Does urban fiction go beyond the surface? Surface meaning the deeper aspects of society.  Its valid to reiterate that the past, present and future of literature do have a point of convergence.

Gems from Lauren Beaukes :
People also transform like a character does.

We’re burdened by animal instincts

Concepts like : Neo Apartheid systems

“people deal with things, makes choices and are often haunted by these choices – this is part of which gives a city its history and secrets”

Typography with different pathways

The suburbs are right in material and people hide behind their high walls.

Snippets from Aziz Hassim:
The inner city is colloquilized as a ghetto,  alot of description of durbans’ Cazbar.

Maybe there’s less anonymity  in the inner city. Observance and experience allows one to experience. Historical creativity allows one to write on ones experience.

Aziz uses terms like historical creativity and intellectual desert.

Wholistically we see 2 different writers creating from their experiential reality, but in in two very different eras. There seems to be a gap in between, perhaps it would have been a good idea to incorporate a writer who’s work focussed on the time frame between  the 1980s and the 2000s. The gap is glaring but this can be deduced to each book focussing on a different province. For anyone who’s been around South Africa , it is glaring that the provinces differ in terms of what they have to hold in experience. Aziz’s book  ‘Lotus people’ draws on the past reality of Durban. Yet Beaukes ‘Zoo City’ focuses on the the here and now, the roughness of  Hillbrow and the  current narcotics of this era.

From her brief reading, Beaukes style is catchy, teamed up with her intellectual yet vibrant personality  – the audience is drawn into wanting to read more of her book.  As a  reader who hasn’t encountered Lauren, her book doesn’t lean into my interest at shelf value.

Achille Mbembe questions if we are creating a generic racial identity? Where is urban fiction right now, and where is it heading?

Lauren Beaukes does alot of name dropping for BookSA. Needless to say the online generation has encountered booksa on the digital platform with events and reviews. Be sure to visit their site, and fanpage.  Beaukes says that post apartheid gave rise to empty writing. Retrospection on SA History, filled with pain and crimes.

Hassim and Beukes discuss the detonation of culture, identity and race, questioning where are societies breaking points. They are in the ghettos.  Hassim makes reference to the age of western movies being rife discussion in the Casbah  and it gives away a ‘time lapses memory’ of generation gone by.

Beukes concludes with a very apt one liner: ‘Once your book is published, it is no longer yours’