Writing southern spaces: or, Grappling with Patriarchy in Darkest Africa

Elleke Boehmer in conversation with Gillian Dooley and others In early 2019, I was delighted to be invited to do a question and answer session with my friend and colleague Elleke Boehmer about her new book The Shouting in the Dark and Other Southern Writing, recently published by University of Western Australia Press. On the way to the dam Phineas sits in the back seat of the car, in Ella's place. Phineas carries the boat into the water, his trousers rolled to the knee. Phineas raises his arm, then leaves the boat bobbing by itself, strides through the water, bodily picks up the father, strides out again, plants him on the motorboat seat still holding the petrol can. [...]lightly, so lightly the boat hardly rocks, he vaults up, levers himself in behind him. [...]with a throaty cough, as if recovering itself, the boat shoots out across the dam, its comical round stern lifted out of the waves, pointed to the surrounding hills, the shirts of the two skippers billowing like spinnakers.