Truth meets fiction for S. African crime writers FEATURE 08/08/2010

Truth meets fiction for S. African crime writers

FEATURE 08/08/2010 CAPE TOWN — An American tourist runs breathlessly through the streets of Cape Town, desperate to escape the killers who have already murdered one of her friends. The scene from South African bestseller Deon Meyer’s latest novel 13 hours is fictional, but springs from fertile soil for the genre in a nation where truth is often bloodier than fiction and crime claims 50 lives a day. “To me there’s absolutely no relationship between real-world crime in South Africa and crime fiction,” said Meyer whose international book tours include regular grillings on crime which he argues must be seen in context. “Most crime in South Africa is very undramatic and unexciting. It’s mostly domestic in nature, it happens in the disadvantaged communities. Something like 83 percent of all crime in South Africa, especially violent crime, happens there. “There’s nothing sexy about that. It’s sad — but you can’t fictionalize it,” he told the Cape Town Book Fair which ended this week..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100808com3.html

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