Troy Blacklaws Novelist, Journalist

I am Gecko, a Yankee Zulu who runs away from the South African army to be a refugee in London, an illegal alien in the land of his forefathers. I am Jerusalem, a half-Jew, half-Moslem who reads Garcia Marquez and dreams of being a poet…but ends up running a market stall in the Cape with a Tanzanian refugee boy as his sidekick. I am Jabulani, a Zimbabwean teacher of Hemingway who loses his post after cracking a jibe at Mugabe and flees south over the Limpopo to seek a life beyond fear. I am Pagan Angel, a freedom fighter who feels shortchanged by the freedom Mandela yearned so long for…by the way it has been hijacked by ANC hotshots zooming along in their flashy motorcars, cocking a finger at the poor.

I write for Sugar, a vinyl guru in Cape Town who loves Jesus Rodriquez. I write for Joshua Sternlicht, a New York filmmaker in Manila who loves indie folk. I write for a wayfarer and stringer called La France who brews beer and dreams in Palmer, Alaska. I write for my son Finn born in Frankfurt who plucks his reggae guitar in Hanoi. I write for my daughter Mia born in Vienna who plays I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee on her clarinet. And for my other daughter Asia born in Singapore who learnt to count by counting monkeys in Bali. And I write for me (teaching in this existential limbo called Luxembourg), the guy with a South African passport, a UK driving license, a German residence visa and a mad heart.

–Troy Blacklaws was born in 1965 in Natal, South Africa. At 14 he discovered South Africa was a world pariah and that black men were shot in their struggle for freedom. He studied at Rhodes University and then spent two bitter years as a conscript in the army, where he refused to carry a gun. His books include Cruel Crazy Beautiful World, Blood Orange, Bafana Bafana: A Story of Soccer, Magic and Mandela, and Karoo Boy.

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2paragraphs gives special thanks to Anderson Tepper for curating our International Writers Interviews. Mr. Tepper is on the staff of Vanity Fair and is a Contributing Editor at Words Without Borders.