15+ questions for Deborah Steinmair

Our beloved books editor, Deborah Steinmair, answers our 15+ questions this week. She is a native of Pretoria, the Union Buildings, the pop-up toaster-Voortrekker Monument, Oom Paul and the warriors in the square, the Fountains, the beautiful, large public library, the Wool Council, and Uniewinkels all orderly and pure white. Not from the leafy green suburbs of the Meisies Hoër landscape, but the murky Pretoria North, where artists toiled. Her father was a sculptor.

1. Tell us about your path to books editor.

I studied communications at Potchefstroom (also not very cool) to become a journalist. I didn't like it and switched to BA in English and drama. Which qualified me for nothing on earth. Fortunately, I didn't (then) catch a man. Went to work in a library, taught, did a multitude of jobs, until I got into journalism through the back door. LitNet, Kalahari.net, the publishing industry. And now I'm where I wanted to be.

2. Describe yourself in a hashtag.

#pushingdoorsmarkedpull

3. What do you read first thing every morning?

Vrye Weekblad. The seven things make me feel like an expert on politics, super-informed about news events. Then all the word games.

4. What do you listen to in your car?

Radio 702, because I want to know how the majority of my countrymen, with whom I have little to do, see things.

5. How many books do you read every week? 

Not as many as Jonathan Amid. About five. Sometimes I start a book and can't close it before the last page – all night or all day.

6. How do you decide on the books you have to read every day for VWB ?

The publishers send me a wish list that I fill in, then the couriers deliver packages of books to my door and I read and write. I'm secretly a head girl type – if you throw the ball to me, I'm going to shoot it back in a flash or run with it into the goal box.

7. Your favourite genre? And why?

That indefinable, literary non-genre that is between the wood and the bark, ruminations, facts that have been misremembered, a lot of condensation, dense and poetic stream of consciousness, where the subconscious is only a hair's breadth away. And then of course a literary krimi, because I'm a sucker for a storyline.

8. Five books you can recommend to everyone?

Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Enemies, A Love Story – Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Same Sea – Amos Oz
Oryx & Crake – Margaret Atwood
The PowerBook – Jeanette Winterson

9. A new author you think we should keep an eye on? Why?

PJO Jonker is newly published, but apparently has been writing his book for years. Die Onsigbare (The Invisible) struck me profoundly – if you can wring that much resonance from a farm novel, you've got a lot of books left in you.

10. Your favourite fiction writers in SA?

The usual suspects and I refer to the living right through: Marlene van Niekerk, Ingrid Winterbach, S.J. Naudé, Etienne van Heerden, Eben Venter.

11. And non-fiction?

Pieter P. Fourie, Annemarie van Niekerk, Leon Rousseau, J.C. Steyn, C. Johan Bakkes.

12. If you could have three people for dinner, living or deceased, who would you invite? Where would you eat? And what would you eat and drink?

I'll invite the departed, while I can. Definitely my father, who will dress up nicely. Then Leonard Cohen, who had no choice, who was born with the gift of a golden voice. He wouldn't have to sing, he only has to speak in that silver voice with its sweet pronunciation; throwaway lines like: “A great generosity prevailed in those doomed decades."

Then I would also invite Frida Kahlo. She is unharmed yet like before the tram accident, she dances in gypsy skirts and Cohen sings to her: “I heard all the wild reports, they can't be right. Where, where, where is my gypsy wife tonight?” She hasn't met Diego Riviera yet. Leonard fixes on her, but she gives me the glad eye. In the end, Leonard braids her hair and my father and I talk until dawn.

We eat on a sailing ship, as in my favourite poem by Edward Lear: “The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey and plenty of money, wrapped in a five-pound note.” We leave on a small pea-green ship. Leonard can sail. We eat artichokes, oysters, prickly pears and panforte. We drink gin and Meerlust Rubicon.

13. What does Kamala think? Do you think she has it in her to take on wily leaders like Putin, Xi Jinping and Netanyahu?

I think she is excellent at taking on, she is a competent prosecutor and has the gift of the gab. I don't know if she performs equally well in policymaking and strategy.

14. What would you say if you could meet her?

Just not Mamala.

15. Your favourite scent?

Cut grass and faded floral (Yesterday, today and tomorrow).

16. If you could only choose one song to listen to forever, what would it be?

I think words lose lustre in endless repetition, so it has to be something instrumental. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

17. Favourite period in history?

Right now, because everything happens live and there is no script.

18. If you could choose, who would you like to paint your portrait? And why?

Rembrandt, because he will take his time by flickering candlelight and mix a lot of empathy, misery and melancholy into the paint.

19. If you could be a fictional character, who would you choose?

When I was young it was Purdey from The New Avengers. Now I'd rather be my own avatar. Literary characters have such miserable lives.

20. What series do you watch?

We are watching Only Murders in the Building on Disney now, and it's wonderful.

21. Was there an event or moment that changed your life?

So many. When the aunt on whose lap I sat colouring, remarked: “How this one loves purple." When my first-grade teacher said: “You are a darling and a stalwart. Your teachers will be very proud of you still." When my ex-husband said: “You have such a sweet breath, you can neutralise garlic within seconds."

22. Excuse the English, how many fucks do you give?

Hopelessly too many. I want to be a “child" so much.

23. Is there an older woman, apart from your mother, who had a great influence on your life?

[Writer and poet] Jeanne Goosen taught me how not to take on life and to always look with a fresh eye, that you can expect anything.

24. What did you do as a child, apart from reading, that made the hours feel like minutes?

Thinking. It was my secret hobby. In total seclusion; under a sofa or on the roof.

25. What did you read as a teenager? 

Inappropriate nooky stories from [Heinz] Konsalik, Wilbur Smith, Jilly Cooper and Xaviera Hollander. Because by then I had long since read all the children's and young adult books in the library.

26. What is the first book you read that left a big impression on you?

The first English book that I puzzled out, because we never heard English and the spelling was completely unphonetic. I was six and the book was Caroline and Her Kettle Named Maud.

27. At what stage did you think you wanted to write?

Long before I could read and write.

28. Who is an ‘it' girl for you?

I have little sense of style. I like women who give me the feeling that bullies are going to get whipped, like our colleague Angela Tuck. And even I can see your style is breathtaking.

29. What does no one know about you?

That I was arrested one night, or taken to the police station under duress. It was raining, it was on a main road, I was in tears, stone-cold sober and on foot, barefoot. They wanted to return me to my lawful husband by all means, but I escaped.

30. Why don't you eat meat?

I saw a documentary, three hours long, about industrial farming in Austria and Germany. I had a nervous breakdown afterwards and sat and twitched for hours. The pigs in particular arrested me with their soulful, awe-inspiring eyes, their fear of death and cries of anguish. I was filled with the realisation that we were closely related and I knew that if I ever put meat in my mouth again, I would have no respect for myself. I didn't. That was 20 years ago.

31. Your favourite Afrikaans songs?

“Sonvanger", “Gee jou hart vir Hillbrow", “Vier seisoene kind", “Lisa se klavier", “Skipskop".

32. Your five favourite poets in Afrikaans at the moment?

Antjie Krog, Johan Myburg, Dominique Botha, Danie Marais, Jolyn Phillips. Five is too few: Bibi Slippers, Nathan Trantraal and Ronelda S. Kamfer, Tom Dreyer, Pieter Odendaal, Alwyn Roux, Ashwin Arendse, Lynthia Julius.

33. What are you looking forward to?

More! The next book.

♦ VWB ♦

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION: Go to the bottom of this page to share your opinion. We look forward to hearing from you.