Award-winning South African playwright, novelist, and author of short stories and screenplays Nadia Davids answered questions and signed copies of her latest book, Cape Fever at Wordsworth Books in Sea Point, on Friday, March 27.
The Los Angeles-based author, born and raised in Walmer Estate, woke up with the idea to write the novel in 2007, including an employee and an employer.
“When I got the idea, I thought it would be easy to write, but when I sat down, I got nowhere,” she said.
In between, she wrote other plays, and about nine years later, she realised that it should be set in 1920, after World War I.
Fast forward to 2026, she releases a time period piece set in Cape Town, but she calls it Cape, which a reader asked her about.
“Why do you not say Cape Town in the book?” he asked.
Ms Davids said that she wanted readers who knew Cape Town to also have a sense of wonder and for them to create the story in their minds.
She said that she wrote within her own living memory and that it was exciting to think about that version of the Mother City at that time.
“The book is based on Cape Town, but it is not exactly Cape Town. I’ve given myself a little bit of latitude around that it was interesting to slip and emerge in that time period and think about it,” she said.
The gothic psychological thriller tells the story of a young maid entangled with the spirits of a decaying manor.
“It is a book of fiction, but I thought of my grandmothers when I was writing the book. Both of them were so courageous, feisty, interesting, smart, imaginative, and survivors,” she said.
Ms Davids said the setting of the plot came before the names of the characters and that she tapped into her matriarchal ancestry.
While her grandmothers may not have identified themselves as feminists but they had shown such “remarkable resilience”.
“This book was to have the central character, Soraya, who is so imaginative and not a perfect character by any means.
“She can be quite difficult and can have a fructuous relationship with her mother, but does not always understand what her mother does,” she said.
Similarly she writes about Soraya’s relationship with her father, which is “beautiful and encouraging”.
He is an Islamic calligrapher, and “she deeply respects his work”.
“Looks up to him, understands him as an intellectual figure, and he is connected to this spiritual realm,” she said.
Ms Davids’s theatre works include At Her Feet, Cissie, What Remains, and Hold Still, which have been staged throughout Southern Africa and Europe, and have been nominated, cumulatively, for sixteen Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards.
She has twice won Best New South African Play and in 2022 was awarded the Olive Schreiner Prize for Drama.
Her debut novel, An Imperfect Blessing, was shortlisted for the Pan-African Etisalat Prize for Literature, and her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Scholar, Astra Magazine, the Georgia Review, and Zyzzyva Magazine.
She is an NYC’s Women’s Project playwright alum and has held writing residencies at Art Omi, Hedgebrook, and was a 2023 Aspen Writer in Residency.
Her short story ‘Bridling’ won the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing.
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