Books

About me and my writing

Jann Turner

January 19, 2003

I was born to South African parents in France in 1964. We returned from to my grandmothers Stellenbosch farm in 1967. I grew up in the Cape and did the first half of my schooling there. In 1978 my father, Rick Turner www.turner.ukzn.ac.za, a Natal University academic and anti-apartheid activist, was assassinated. Shortly afterwards my mother took the family to the UK where I finished my schooling and went on to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. By the time I graduated I knew that my first love was storytelling. I took up a place at the Graduate School of Film & TV at New York University and studied there, watching and making films for four years. I lived in the US for several years after graduating from NYU and worked as an assistant film editor for a number of companies including National Geographic. In 1994 I won an Emmy for sound editing on National Geographic’s “ Wolves of the Air.” In 1996 I returned to South Africa and settled in Johannesburg, which is home for me now. In 1997 my first novel, HEARTLAND, was published by Orion in the UK, Lubbe in Germany and Libros in Poland. For two years I worked as a producer on SABC TV’s Truth Commission Special Report. Our team covered the weekly proceedings of the TRC and looked into the stories behind the stories. We won the Foreign Correspondents Award for Journalism in 1997. When the Truth Commission and our programme came to a close I moved to Endemol Television and worked for a further two years as a Director on the then brand new daily soap Isidingo. But I wanted to get back to writing and left Isidingo to finish my second novel, SOUTHERN CROSS, which was published by Orion in the UK last year. The German edition comes out in mid-2004. In 2002 Maskew Millar Longman published my very first attempt at a book, HOME IS WHERE YOU FIND IT. Written when I was twelve and a Standard Five pupil at Grove Primary School in Cape Town. I am currently working on a new book.

My approach to writing is simple. I need to write, so I do. I love storytelling and although I still write scripts for film and television, I see myself first and foremost as a novelist. My books start with their characters and grow from there. So far my books have been set in South Africa, but I feel the themes I deal with are universal. Nowadays I’m writing full time and my days follow a very simple routine. I write from early in the morning until mid-afternoon when I stop to edit or to do other things. I read a lot and very widely. I am learning all the time and feel very strongly that my best work is yet to come.

:: Southern Cross ::

:: Reviews ::
The Good Book Guide:
'Turner writes with passion, eloquence, honesty - and from experience. She writes of her country with great clarity, love and awe. This is a novel told from the heart, which should be read by the widest audience.

:: Excerpt ::
Anna and Paul are bound by a love so deep it seems nothing can come between them. He is white, she is not. Its not only their ideals, but also their relationship that challenges apartheid divided South Africa. Working together in the underground resistance movement, their lives are fraught with excitement and danger, until the night when Paul and a friend are brutally murdered. Paralysed by grief, but sustained by the memory of Pauls love, Anna fights for justice and truth.

Ten Years later in the new South Africa, Anna brings the unsolved murder to the Truth Commission. There she encounters James Kay, a cynical determined journalist who has information which turns Annas life upside down. James reveals a darek truth that threatens to destroy the very foundations on which Anna has rebuilt her life.

James and Anna both discover that nothing is black and white. It never was. Its a thousand shades of grey.

"How benign Johannesburg seemed at night. All the dirt and violence concealed by the glittering lights. Annas face shone as she looked around at the small gathering, at these friends who had become her family. She felt the hope pulsing through each of them and she saw it humming in Pauls eyes as he looked to the horizon, waiting for the appearance of the Southern Cross, for that magical moment when the first, tiny, dazzling diamonds of light would pop through the seemingly infinite velvet blue of the sky. There it is ! he cried. And there they were, the four stars that long ago had pointed the way south to the Europeans navigating their way across the seas in search of spices and the east."

"Southern Cross" is about all the difficult things I've been wading through in the past few years. Hopefully a murk that I have now moved out of! It's the story of Anna, a coloured activist from struggle years who now has a senior position in the civil service. And who is frozen by grief. Her activist lover Paul was assassinated ten years before we meet Anna as she prepares to take the story to the TRC. Then along comes James, cynical, living in the moment journalist who has stumbled on information that turns Anna's world upside down. Paul wasn't the man he seemed to be. In her search for the truth about Paul's murder she is forced to review of her entire narrative of their relationship and therefore her ownstory and sense of herself. It's about Anna's journey into the present. It's also about the greyness of things in South Africa now, as distinct from the clear black and whiteness of things in the 80's, the clear right and wrongness of things then. It's about grief and healing. And it's about the Truth Commission and all the themes that radiate out from that experience.

The idea for the book was planted during the two years I worked as a journalist on SABC TVs Truth Commission Special Report. It draws on my own experiences of investigating my fathers assassination. My dad, Rick Turner www.turner.ukzn.ac.za was an anti-apartheid activist who was shot dead at our house in Durban on January 8, 1978 by a still unknown assassin.

"Southern Cross" is the story of Anna, an activist from the struggle years who now has a senior position in the new South African civil service. And who is frozen by grief. Her comrade and lover, Paul, was assassinated ten years before. We meet Anna as she prepares to take the story to the TRC. Then along comes James, cynical, living in the moment journalist who has stumbled on information that turns Anna's world upside down. James evidence suggests that Paul wasn't the man he seemed to be.

In certain respects Southern Cross is about the Truth Commission and all the themes that radiate out from that experience. It's also about the greyness of things in South Africa now, as distinct from the clear black and whiteness of things in the 80's, the clear rightness and wrongness of things then. But first and foremost, for me, it is the story of Anna's journey out of the paralysing grief of her past and back into the present.

:: Heartland ::

published by Orion in the UK and on sale in Germany as Herzland.

Above all this book is about belonging. And I started to write it when I was living in the United States and feeling terribly far away from the huge changes that South African was undergoing in the early 1990’s. I came back to South Africa and settled in Johannesburg half way through the writing of the novel.

Both Elise and Sandile, the books central characters, have battled with exile and identity and coming home.

 

:: Home Is Where You Find It ::

This was a Standard Five holiday homework project. Mr. De La Mere, my Standard Five class teacher assigned us the task of writing a novel over a mid-year short vacation. The result was this book which twenty five years later was picked up by Maskew Miller Longman and beautifully illustrated and brought out as a childrens school reader in the Stars of Africa series.

What spooks me when I look at this book is how it prefigures all the big themes of my life and my later writing. Loss, dislocation, rootlessness and somehow, whatever happens, making the best of things.