Still Life

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Zoeë Wicomb. Still Life

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Praise for October

‘As one upturns each sentence, slips into the cracks of the measured and seemingly remote prose, one begins to understand its quiet power’

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But first a few more words about Belinda. Which may or may not be a delaying tactic: there is, as far as I can see, no reliable way of telling. Belinda is a feminist who believes in the category of women’s writing, which is to say women’s lives; believes in its value. She is not actually an editor. Belinda is an agent who believes her role to include that of editing, by which she means helping an author to shape a narrative. She demonstrates what she is after, what is required, by editing a page or ten – ever so lightly, she promises. She does not care for semicolons, and irony persistently ducks out of her ken. She has questioned me on unreliable characters and even insisted on the removal of what she calls an inconsistency.

Irony, I explain, but oh no, too obscure; readers would not get what you call irony, she insists. In other words, I am in her hands, although not in the way she imagines. But all things considered, including her slight frame, they are strong, supportive hands and I am indeed sorry to let her down in this way, especially since I’ve turned out to be her discovery. A puzzling term used by more than one reviewer, puzzling since I had, like anyone else, simply sent my first manuscript to Belinda, whom I had found in the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. It was well after I signed up with her that she declared her belief that a novel should be a happy collaboration between writer, agent and editor. Vigilance therefore is the name of the game: there is no question of letting her loose on an unfinished manuscript.

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