Edgar Night

Tonight is Edgar night, the night when Mystery Writers of America throws a gala function and announces the winners of its prestigious Edgar Awards for the best mysteries of 2011.  As you probably know, Death of the Mantis has been shortlisted for the Edgar for best paperback original of 2011.  Just being shortlisted was a huge deal for us and not one we expected.  We didn't even check the announcement when it came out; we were only alerted by generous congratulations from Leighton!  We were blown away.

Stan is going to be there tonight, but unfortunately I couldn't get away from commitments in South Africa - including the Knysna Literary Festival which is taking place this weekend and features a mystery writing event with myself and South African mystery writers Mike Nicol and Margie Orford.  So when the announcement is made tonight, I'll be trying to sleep. (It'll probably be about 3am here.)  But I'm feeling the same butterflies all the other finalists are feeling tonight...

Certificate of nomination

Death of the Mantis was a special book for us.  Of course they are all special, but this was the book were we tried to paint our story on the poignant backdrop of a dying culture.  If the book wins tonight, it is the Bushman people and their extraordinary lives that have made it so.

So here once again is the story of the Bushman people and the way it led to tonight...

The Bushmen have been nomadic peoples – there are many different groups with a variety of languages - for hundreds of thousands of years. As other population groups crowded them, they moved into the arid regions of southern Africa and developed a very successful if spartan lifestyle. They would dig for water and suck it out of the ground through straws or use Tsama melons for fluid. Sharing was a survival strategy. They moved with the seasons, following game which they hunted using bows and poisoned arrows. The poisons make a story in themselves, ranging from snake venom, through extraordinary desert plants, to an extraction of the larva of a beetle which is so poisonous there is no known antidote.  Their ancestors left amazing rock art.

Fast forward to the twenty-first century. (There’s some pretty sickening stuff in the years we’re skipping over, including a period when the Bushmen where hunted like animals.) Now things in Botswana are very different. Much of the Kalahari is declared as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Diamond mining drives the economy. Bushmen numbers have declined.

And how you interpret the situation depends on your perspective. Here is my superficial summary of the way some of the Bushman leaders see it, and how support groups like Survival International see it:
The Bushmen have always lived in the Kalahari. Fences and private land ownership – which is alien to them – interfere with their nomadic behaviours, and rules concerning hunting force them near starvation. Their culture is not respected and is being destroyed by the change in environment and legal constraints with which they don’t agree. In order to keep the Kalahari for tourism and – according to some - for diamond mining, the Bushmen are being forced out of the Kalahari game reserve and into settlements little better than concentration camps on the verges of the land they once regarded as their own. Yes, there is some compensation, but this is soon frittered away leaving nothing. Financial investing is completely beyond their ken.

And here is how the Botswana government sees it:
The government has an obligation to provide appropriate infrastructure for all its citizens. This includes proper schools (Botswana has a policy that schools should be within walking distance from where people live), health care at least at a primary level, water and sanitation. Furthermore the Kalahari is remote and inaccessible, an ecological treasure that must be preserved. Discrimination on race is forbidden by the constitution; if the Bushmen live there, how are other population groups to be prevented from living and hunting there? And now the Bushmen hunt with guns rather than bows and arrows. Their nomadic behaviour has changed to informal settlements where water has to be supplied by road, rather than found in depressions or melons. Crudely put, the traditional culture is already dead; only the inconvenience remains. Thus a group of planned settlements set up in appropriate places with schools and services is the way to go. Appropriate compensation is paid to the people who have to move. They have a new and better life ahead.
In the wide gap between these two viewpoints is a variety of groups trying to negotiate a scenario which would bring the two sides closer together. Among these is Ditshwanelo, an amazing human rights organisation led by the equally amazing Alice Mogwe. (Ditshwanelo is a Setswana word meaning variously: obligations, merits, duties.) Nevertheless, with such extreme perspectives, and the muscle behind each side, it was almost inevitable that the matter would end in the Botswana High Court.

One of the three judges was the remarkable Unity Dow – first woman High Court judge in Botswana, member of the Kenyan Constitutional court, novelist. Broadly, the judges ruled in favour of the Bushmen. In the judgement, Dow said that the case was ‘ultimately about a people demanding dignity and respect. It is a people saying in essence: "Our way of life may be different, but it is worthy of respect. We may be changing and getting closer to your way of life, but give us a chance to decide what we want to carry with us into the future”.’

Michael - Edgar Night

The Madeira Party?

Stan and I completed the midwest leg of our book tour for DEATH OF THE MANTIS on Friday. We had a super time: visits to Chicago, Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Urbana, Iowa City and, of course, St Louis. At the book signings people were fascinated by the genuine Bushman hunting kit Stan acquired forty years ago. We take it to almost all the events, and it wonderfully illustrates the cultural backstory of the book. We had an amazing time meeting old and new readers and old and new friends, and Bouchercon was simply spectacular. More of that next week in Stan’s MIE combined post on our impressions of the event. For now, suffice it to say that we’ll be in Cleveland (and Bristol for that matter) next year.

Celebration for the end of the midwest tour

After four more events in Minneapolis after we finished the road trip, we decided that it was time for a bit of a celebration.  So after our event in Wayzata, we had dinner with friends at a restaurant near the bookstore - and found 1922 Madeira by the glass on the dessert menu.  Speaking of backstories, there’s one here too.  Some friends have been trying to get an old bottle of Madeira for Stan for a birthday present for several years.  One obstacle after the other prevented this from happening.  A bottle like the one at the restaurant is available from a few specialist wine stores – if you have a spare $350!  So it was a fitting finale to the trip to celebrate with a glass at the end of the meal.  The waiter willingly loaned us the bottle for the picture, but he kept a firm eye on it during the proceedings!

Vineyards on beautiful Madeira

Madeira wine has an interesting history.  First of all it comes exclusively from the Portuguese island of the same name situated to the west of North Africa.  The island was supposedly discovered in 1419 by sailors exploring for Prince Henry the Navigator and settled shortly afterwards.  About fifteen years later it started being referred to by its current name: Ilha da Madeira (Island of Wood after its rich forests). And it was ideally situated as a stopover for ships en route to and from the New World and the East Indies.  In the sixteenth century there was a well-developed wine industry .  Ships would stop to pick up “pipes” of wine.  (A pipe is about 125 gallons.)  Much of it spoiled on the long hot voyages so the vintners started fortifying the wine (adding first cane spirit and later brandy) to stabilize it. 

The four major styles

But the heat of the journey still caused some strange developments in the wine and some pipes were rejected and sent back to Madeira.  To the initial surprise of the winemakers, the somewhat cooked and oxidized wine became very popular.  It has a distinctive rich taste and freshness assisted by the extra alcohol and mild pasteurization of the heating.  Pretty soon the vintners worked out a way of getting those effects without shipping the wine halfway around the world and back.  It’s called estufagem and essentially involves heating the wine to around 130 degrees Fahrenheit for considerable periods of time. It’s always at least ninety days, but for the best vintage wine it may be done naturally in sun-warmed rooms for twenty years!

We were amazed by the freshness and liveliness of the wine, nearly ninety years old.  The taste was a sort of cross between port and sherry with hints of caramel but not sweet.  The waiter was a bit concerned that the bottle had been “open for some time” as “there wasn’t much call for it”.  He shouldn't have worried: the wine must be open for at least a day before you drink it and can be fine after it’s been open for as long as a year.  Maybe we’ll have another glass after Cleveland in 2012.

Madeira wine has a long association with the US too.  Jefferson enjoyed it and it was used to toast the Declaration of Independence.  Washington and Franklin were also partial to it.  A major event on the way to the Declaration was the British seizure of John Hancock’s sloop the Liberty on May 9, 1768. Hancock's boat was seized after he had unloaded a cargo of 25 pipes (3,150 gallons) of Madeira and a dispute over import duties followed. The impounding of the ship led to seething riots in Boston.  I always wondered about all that fuss over some tea.  Now Madeira is another thing altogether.  Maybe the Tea Party should consider a name change?  Wine Party has a nice ring to it.

If you’re a Flanders and Swann fan, click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_zi8n4HDQ for their take on the wine of Ilha da Madeira.

Michael – Thursday. 

Death of the Mantis

This week I am going to indulge in some BSP (blatant self promotion, with ‘self’ in this case referring to two people) and tub thumping.

World launch at Love Books

After a prolonged gestation period, the third Detective Kubu mystery, Death of the Mantis, saw the light of day late yesterday afternoon at a delightful independent bookstore in Johannesburg called Love Books.  As evening fell, wine and snacks appeared, and a large group of well-wishers and fans gathered around to listen to Michael and me in conversation with a well known wine writer, Neil Pendock.  It’s amazing how patient, long-suffering, and supportive friends can be.

Eventually everything ran out – snacks, wine, energy, and even books! 

Michael, Neil Pendock, and Stan at Love Books

Then it was time for the two author to relax, so we joined Neil Pendock and the small group who had made the whole event possible, from Jonathan Ball publishers and Love Books, for a wonderful dinner.  Michael and I both had foie gras.  Michael followed with lamb chops, I with roast duck.  All washed down with a variety of fine wines and eventually grappa – except for me because I was the designated driver and sipped 4 quarter glasses of wine and no grappa.

Michael and Stan at Bay Books

This blog is late (apologies) because I have just returned from the second launch event (it is nearly 1 am), this time in Cape Town at Bay Books, where we were interviewed by the excellent South African mystery writer, Mike Nicol.  Guess what?  Another dinner after the launch.  And tomorrow the scene repeats itself at the lovely Kalk Bay Books, where we will be interviewed by Sarah Lotz, a very funny writer.

Death of the Mantis is set in the southern Kalahari of Botswana, initially in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park near Mabuesahube, then slightly further north around the small towns of Tshane and Hukuntsi.  The back story of the book is the plight of the Bushman or San people, who are amongst the oldest groups on the planet.

In 1995, during a severe drought in Botswana, four Bushmen came across an unattended ox.  Desperately hungry they killed it for food.  The next day, another Bushman came along and asked about his ox.  Shortly after, he too was dead.  The four Bushmen were arrested and eventually only Maauwe and Motletwa were charged and found guilty of murder.  They were sentenced to death.  Part of the evidence led against them was their signed confessions.  Unfortunately their court appointed lawyer failed to challenge these in court, which he could easily have done since they were written in Setswana, which the Bushmen barely understood, and certainly couldn’t read since they were illiterate.  The two also claimed that they were beaten by the police and that they never made confessions.

In the run up to an appeal, Maauwe and Motletwa asked some people who routinely visited their prison to write a letter to the court requesting a competent attorney.  The letter was sent but new attorneys were not appointed and the letter never surfaced at the appeal.  The death penalty was approved.

A Botswana human rights organization, Ditshwanelo had followed the case and had tried unsuccessfully to obtain clemency for the two.  By chance, Ditshwanelo heard about the impending execution a mere three days before they were scheduled (January 16, 1999) and were able to obtain a stay of execution based on two constitutional challenges.  As Ditshwanelo dug into the case they complied a large amount of evidence documenting the unfairness of the trial.  And in October 1999 the High Court declared a mistrial.

The High Court, however, gave the prosecution the opportunity to re-open the case.  Five years later, the case had still not been brought to court.  Again Ditshwanelo went to the aid of Maauwe and Motletwa, who had now spent 10 years in prison with being convicted.  The High Court again intervened and granted the two Bushmen immunity from prosecution.

As you can imagine, Bushmen do not have a favourable opinion of the Botswana police or courts – an opinion that has been reinforced by a number of other actions by the Botswana government over the past ten years.

In Death of the Mantis, When a Kalahari ranger is found dead in a dry ravine, his corpse surrounded by three Bushmen, the local police arrest the nomads.  Botswana’s Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu investigates the case and is reunited with his old school friend Khumanego, a Bushman and advocate for his people.  Khumanego claims the nomads are innocent and the arrests motivated by racist antagonism.  The Bushmen are released, but soon after, another man is murdered in similar circumstances.  Are the Bushmen to blame, or is it a copycat murder?

Then there is a third murder.  Again it points to the Bushmen.  Kubu journeys into the depths of the Kalahari to find the truth.  What he discovers will test all his powers of detection – and his ability to stay alive…

[Stage direction: 7 beats on the timpani; dramatic music]

Michael and I like Death of the Mantis the most of our three books, and we hope the reading public do so too.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Stan- Thursday