Damon Galgut
Damon Galgut
Damon Galgutis an award-winning South African playwright and novelist...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth12 November 1963
abstract apartheid changed distant fascinated generation growing people whom
I'm fascinated by how much has changed from one generation to another. There are young people growing up now for whom apartheid is just a distant memory and the idea of military service is an abstract notion.
change radical stories subject trauma
Any radical change or trauma always makes for interesting subject matter, but then all stories deal, to some extent, with the disjuncture between past and present.
deeper goes mere perceive politics psyche south writers younger
Rian Malan was one of the first younger writers to perceive and write about a darkness in the South African psyche that goes deeper than mere politics. To some extent, that's my territory, too.
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South Africa is highly politicised; even small issues become politicised, and it becomes quite bitter.
definitely incapable
I'm constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains, and airports are definitely out.
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India I have visited a great many times, though there is a lot about it I will never understand.
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Almost overnight, white people have gone from being very powerful to potentially irrelevant. Their future in South Africa is not what many had envisaged, so it involves a lot of reinvention.
apartheid gift looking writers
While apartheid was in operation, the set-up was a gift for writers if you were looking for a big theme.
directly experience few society traveling zones
Traveling is one of few zones of experience where you are not directly plugged into the world around you. You're not part of the society you're passing through.
composed good helps serene state yoga
Yoga helps me with a composed and serene state of mind, which is good for writing.
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Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.
affection painful unrequited
Unrequited affection is very painful for the lover, but it can have unexpected, creative consequences.
done world deeds
If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.
thinking people matter
In his clearest moments he thinks he has lost the ability to love, people or places or things, most of all the person and place and thing that he is. Without love nothing has value, nothing can be made to matter very much.