More air wheezing out of a cushion. “How will you achieve this face-to-face meeting? Will you pursue him to the ends of the earth? Will you go all the way to Adelaide?”

“If I have to.”

“So you are Ahab and he is your white whale.”

“You’re not the first to make that observation.”

“You will never unseat or even unsettle Coetzee’s narrative because he is canonical, and you are fringe. He is the English literature degree, and you are the gender studies module. He is the default and you are the outlier. You don’t have the power to replace his version with your own.”

“You are probably right, but I won’t stop trying.”

“We at the Journal of African Literature of the Diaspora are happy to do what we can to give you a platform. This interview will serve as your first public challenge to Coetzee. If he still moves in academic circles, he will hear of it. Of course, it will be framed in such a way as to make it clear that you are the hyena snapping and whining at the heels of a lion, hoping for scraps of its meal. The most dignified course for Coetzee will be to ignore it.”

I am not sure whether he says these last words out loud or not.

TRACY WHITEGIRL’S LEGAL BLOG
ON THE INTERNET

Today is the day. In the matter of the State v David Lurie, the defendant’s daughter Lucy Lurie is expected to testify for the state. Public interest is running high and the courtroom will be packed with journalists from all over the world.

The state is represented by Bheki Khumalo who will lead Ms. Lurie as she presents her evidence of what happened on that fateful evening when she was assaulted in her father’s presence by six men who had broken into the house.

Mr. Lurie is accused of having planned and orchestrated the attack. It is the state’s case that he hired the six men to make the break-in look like a random home invasion. His motive is believed to have been the money paid out by the insurance company after his farmhouse was torched by the men. Police sources say they might never have looked more closely at the case if they hadn’t been tipped off by the insurance company.

Insurance assessors became suspicious when Mr. Lurie tried to inflate the value of his property and possessions as the claim dragged on over two years. Had he not drawn attention to himself in this way, the alleged fraud might never have been discovered.