There was nothing neutral about watching fellow white southern Africans – one who lives in the U.S. and one who lives in South Africa – talk about their powerful, groundbreaking memoirs (Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Scribbling the Cat and Rian Malan’s My Traitor’s Heart). It was a meal where everything was served up – loathing, longing, “ordinary murder” (Malan’s phrase), betrayal, complicity, family dysfunction southern African-style, marinated in a mix of racism and booze. On the subject of whether or not their families had read their books, Fuller responded first with, “My mother organized a one-woman boycott of my book.” After she suggested to her father that he listen to it on tape, “I can’t listen to any bloody tapes. I’m deaf. You even say that in your book”. (which led Fuller to believe that he had, in fact, read it.) Malan said his mother had read My Traitor’s Heart but his father hadn’t. His mother was mainly concerned about his description of how he had lost his virginity to a black maid and that this story would come out in public.

Anne Landsman reports from PEN World Voices. Also, reports from a reading by Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, and Mario Vargas Llosa here, here, and here.