Writing Crime in the New South Africa: Negotiating Threat in the Novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford

The explosion of crime fiction in contemporary South Africa requires explanation in terms of its relations with actual crime in that country, with crime novels from elsewhere, and with trends in South African literary history. Taking issue with recent criticism which sees in the genre a turning away from historicity and the political, the article argues that the novels of Deon Meyer and Margie Orford display an engagement with major post-apartheid themes, and a politics that is, for the most part, liberal in nature. There is a striking correlation to be drawn between the proposals of South African criminologists and what contemporary crime novelists themselves explore in their fictions. Specifically, both return to the figure of the detective as an antidote to disorder, violence, and uncertainty. This essay interprets the meaning of the post-apartheid crime fiction phenomenon in terms of the novels' capacity to negotiate threat, and to profit from doing so.