In the wine cellar turned war room of a fake vineyard outside Pretoria, the Afrikaner woman known as Die Maker, dressed in milk white linen, addresses nine black South Africans. She explains the mission: provoke and execute violent protests against other African nationals. Each gangster will receive 5 million rands from the “Hunters of Kwerekwere,” a shadowy Stellenbosch group.
A Tsonga sex worker outside overhears fragments of the conversation through a vent.
The nine are introduced by tribe: Zulu hothead, Xhosa strategist, BaPedi skeptic, BaTswana fixer, BaSotho loyalist, Tsonga pragmatist, Swazi enforcer, Venda mystic, and Ndebele wildcard.
The city itself seemed infected with ghosts. Police vehicles rarely entered the townships and arrived in convoys. Ambulances stopped coming entirely after dark. The state has retreated. Only gangs remained. Thousands killed, more displaced and to what end?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Onyeka Nwelue is a Nigerian writer, filmmaker, jazz musician, a trained anthropologist and a Žižekian disciple, a Soyinkaphile, who has published over 40 books, including the Crime Awards and ANA prize-winning The Strangers of Braamfontein, hailed by Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka as ‘raunchy.’ He is also the author of Murder in Orania, Home Affairs and Pay the Xenofobie 5 Million Rands and The Lord of the Shacks. He is the founding director of the James Currey Society in Oxford.
'Pay the Xenofobie 5 Million Rands' is published by WAA Stellenbosch Uitgewer
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