Sean Badal and Victor Dlamini Usher in The Ice on Mars

by Simon on Nov 5th, 2010

Quietly reserved but nonetheless a “presence”, Sean Badal was joined by Victor Dlamini for an in-depth discussion of Badal’s latest novel, The Ice on Mars at Alliance Francaise in Johannesburg yesterday. A welcome Jozi rain shower lightened the stifling heat: guests were most unperturbed by the cooling rains, mingling underneath the red umbrellas and enjoying one another’s company.

David Robbins – author and now publisher – began the main event saying that when he reads a new book, he looks for “control of language” by the author, the main ingredient that makes a book worthwhile. Badal is becoming important, he opined – producing work in the literary vein of John Williams’ Into the Bad Days, writing with crime-genre overtones that actively talks to the socio-political. “This is what Sean has done with The Ice on Mars.”

Robbins introduced Dlamini as a “literary gem” – a man who has become “ubiquitous at all things bookish”. He praised Dlamini for his literary analysis and commentary (via his podcast) saying that “literature is more than book launches; it is essentially a conversation with writers and books on one side and commentators like Dlamini on the other.”

Dlamini began by sharing his recent discovery that he and Badal live in the same building in Joburg’s CBD. He said that he had noticed Badal before knowing who he was – observing the “quiet confidence of a writer” in him. Dlamini asked Badal about the new wave of crime writers locally and abroad and readers’ seemingly endless fascination with the genre. For his part, Badal was quick to say he just does not understand the fascination with crime – something he reiterated throughout the discussion. This was truly interesting commentary given that Badal begins Ice on Mars, in Dlamini’s words, with “13 bodies, 11 bystanders and a young child stuck in a car on the first pages”.

Dlamini and Badal’s conversation revealed that the unique aspect of this piece of crime fiction is that all the subsequent crime takes place in the protagonist’s mind – Samuel Steyn’s crime spree is “victim free”. Badal shared with guests that this novel is about one man’s journey, essentially one of isolation and desolation as he struggles to deal with living in South Africa. He said he tried to create a “universal character” that all readers could identify with.

Dlamini expressed his sense that Badal has a “deep love for language, presenting passages of incredible beauty, and deeply evocative descriptions”. He asked Badal how he was able to tap into such creativity in-between “grotesque scenes of brutality”. Badal replied that he read How to Read Proust, which inspired him in this regard, so too his love of the work of Haruki Murakami. With regards to his own writing, Badal said that most important for him is to “get something down on paper – or computer”. When he only has an hour at a time to write this is critical: later he returns to his words to craft them. As every writer on this planet knows, writing is “incredibly hard work involving a lot of slogging”.

Like others currently surfing South Africa’s current “crime writing wave”, Badal draws from what he sees around him when writing. Readers might recoil from the prejudice and violence on the pages, but this is true to life.

Whence the title of Badal’s new book? It refers to NASA’s Mars space probe – sent out into the galaxy and deliberately crashed on the Red Planet. For Badal, a true reflection of isolation and desolation but with a “trace of hope” – the Mars probe looked for and found signs of water – the essential ingredient for life everywhere – in the form of ice.

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