Walsh said, “That’s very interesting. Because a few months ago, I came across a preposterous – very offensive! – idea that was being spread on some of the far-right-wing European networks. I thought it deserved to be properly – scientifically! – refuted. So I bought a little statistical package, and I asked it to test the hypothesis that a certain portion – a certain quota – of the Nobel Prizes since the year 2010 have been explicitly reserved on political grounds for the citizens of African nations.” There was a moment of stunned silence, then a wave of outraged exclamations spread across the room. Walsh held up her notepad and continued, raising her voice over the outcry, “And the answer was, there was a ninety-five per cent chance—” Half a dozen people in the fan club rows sprang to their feet and started shouting at her; the two men on either side of me began hissing. Walsh pressed on, with an expression of bemusement, as if she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “The answer was, there was a ninety-five per cent chance that it was true .”

A dozen more people stood up to abuse her. Four journalists stormed out of the auditorium. Walsh remained on her feet, waiting for a response, smiling innocently. I saw Marian Fox move tentatively toward the podium; Mosala gestured to her to stay back.

Mosala began typing on her notepad. The shouting and hissing gradually subsided, and then everyone but Walsh took their seats again.

The silence can’t have lasted more than ten seconds, but it was long enough for me to realize that my heart was pounding. I wanted to punch someone. Walsh was no racist, but she was an expert manipulator. She’d slipped a barb under everyone’s skin; if she’d had two hundred screaming, placard-waving followers at the back of the auditorium, she couldn’t have raised stronger passions.

Mosala looked up and smiled sweetly.

She said, “The African scientific renaissance has been examined in detail, in over thirty papers in the last ten years. I’d be happy to give you the references, if you can’t track them down yourself. You’ll find there are several more sophisticated hypotheses for explaining the sharp rise in the number of articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the rates of citation of those articles, the number of patents awarded – and the number of Nobel Prizes for physics and chemistry.

“When it comes to your own field, though, I’m afraid you’re on your own. I can’t find a single study which offers any alternative explanation to the ninety-nine percent likelihood that, since its inception, a quota of Booker Prizes have been set aside for a clearly delineated, intellectually-challenged minority: hacks who should have stayed in advertising.”