Politics in fiction: Yes or no?

It’s the eternal argument, isn’t it? Do South Africans have a responsibility to write political fiction? Or at least infuse their fiction with a political flavour, a current-affairs edge or some hint of HIV/Aids?

I think not.

But I just read an interesting review of my novel, Strange Nervous Laughter, that brought up this conundrum, and I’d like to hash it out a little (and hear your opinion, if you will). You can read the review here.

My gut feel is that no writer should be expected to write a certain way by virtue of the country in which they’re born. It’s like saying that just because you’re South African you should only ever drink rooibos tea … it’s just never going to happen, is it? (I am quite violently opposed to rooibos tea.)

I am also, personally, quite tired of reading serious political novels and I’d like to read about the real, everyday South Africa — the one I’m living in and the one I’d like some perspective on (preferably fresh and thought-provoking). Yes, I have been accused of not wanting to face reality (I don’t like listening to the news much), but who ever said fiction has to be reality? Surely that’s the whole point of it — to be taken to a place that mirrors life but doesn’t replicate it exactly?

I suppose it all boils down to a matter of taste. Some people want to read gritty, hard-hitting fiction, some don’t. Which isn’t to say that I write in a whimsical little bubble (maybe in my blog, not in my Writing with a capital W). I write Durban as I see it — full of all the sounds and smells and sordid corners of the city. Aids is present, but not a major theme. There’s poverty and squalor on the edges of the story, but not at centre stage. I suppose I write what I know.

And that’s the key, isn’t it? Everyone is just writing what he or she knows. We are all given a voice in which to write, and it doesn’t much matter which country you’re born in; that’s the only voice that wants to come out the fingers tapping away at the keyboard. Mine happens to be whimsical and just a wee bit obsessed with love.

I also feel I have to admit that my goal, in writing Strange Nervous Laughter, was to write a book that people who don’t like reading would want to read … something that wasn’t badly written or about busty women and cowboys, something with a deeper meaning, something that was still easy to read.

I want the masses to read! And I don’t think they want to read about politics.

What do you think?