Harare Review of Books

350 pages.

First published on Dec. 5, 2022.

Semi-fictional?

This was an unexpectedly fun novel about the shenanigans in Swaziland of an undercover African National Congress agent in the late 1970s. It’s apparently based on a true story; I’m still confused about what might be memoir (presumably) and what made up, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. 

The protagonist is an American economist who is approached while in London with a request to run guns from Swaziland to South Africa for the ANC. He, being a Leftie, eventually finds the proposition appealing—he wants to make a difference—and so he leaves his girlfriend and goes down to Mbabane to see the lay of the land. He manages to get a job with the government, and settles into the expat life, only being called on occasionally to carry guns in his modified van across the border. His major advantage is that he is a White man, and therefore less suspicious to the South African authorities.

It’s, like I said, an unexpectedly fun read. It reads much more like a memoir than a novel, which is a good thing. The writing is very good generally, and I enjoyed the author’s sense of humour, and description of that time and place. If the protagonist is “non-racial” in that slightly cringey way—he ends up dating a “mixed-race” (“Coloured”) woman who has ”fine facial features” and a “narrow nose” (: and his ANC contacts in Swaziland seem rather buffoonish—I did not feel it was malicious, just a way of seeing the world.

Two other smaller criticisms: K. E. Karl goes on quite a lot about the details of the protagonist’s job, which isn’t at all necessary for the story. The novel could also be quite a lot shorter and tighter; there’s a whole section towards the end (when the protagonist sees that he must leave Swaziland) that feels telescoped because the earlier bits got a bit long-winded. There are also snippets about a trip he makes near the end of the novel that, again, don’t add much to the story, but definitely added to my bewilderment.

On the whole, though, this is a fun read, and I think you’ll enjoy the spy bits like I did. Read also for the excellent description of expat Mbabane at that time, for the protagonist’s droll commentary on it, for how he talks about wine every few minutes, and for his girlfriends, who are really fantastic people. The actual historical bits of the novel—about Joe Slovo, Ruth First, the Soweto massacre, etc—didn’t do much for me, but will be important for context for those who don’t know the history.

Thank you to K. E. Karl and to NetGalley for this fun ARC.