The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories compiled by Diane Awerbuck & edited by Louis Greenberg #review

Title: The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories
Compiled: Diane Awerbuck
Edited: Louis Greenberg
Publisher: Umuzi, 2013

Short story anthologies number among my guilty pleasures, and it was impossible to resist when two of my favourite South African bookish folk – Diane Awerbuck and Louis Greenberg – put their creative minds together to bring out this selection of 31 tales. There is a little bit of everything here to please most palates, and I enjoyed not really knowing what I was getting into whenever I started a fresh tale.

It’s also far beyond the scope of this review to give detailed mention for each story, so I’ll highlight a handful that stood out for me.

“Revelations” by Jennifer Thorpe is filled with barbed humour made me snigger quietly to myself for the naïveté of the narrator pondering the End of Days and the fate of a beloved pooch.

Ilze Hugo’s “The Ghost-Eater” from which the anthology derives its name offers sly, paranormal humour. Fred Mostert, the ghost-eater, is a character I won’t easily forget – especially for his Klippies en Coke and his penchant for KFC.

Then there are stories like Daniel Bertie’s “The Writing Class” that are just downright disturbing in the most deliciously devious pet-“murgling” ways.

I’ve been following Liam Kruger’s career with interest and his “& Found” features his signature alcohol-steeped observations. Many of his characters offer an uncomfortably seedy vibe and this tale, which features a magician with a rare gift to find lost property is no exception.

Mia Arderne’s “The Fool” amply conveys that dismal “morning after the night before” miasma as the protagonist suffers the depredations of both genders. The crushing despair is painful, and you can’t help but feel that the protagonist is the only one to blame for her misery.

“The Nazi Insurgence Reaches Blairgowrie” by Werner Pretorius brings with it a sense of unrelenting claustrophobia as the protagonist deals not only with a midlife crisis but also his father’s dementia.

As stated earlier, this is but a selection of stories that stood out for me, and I’m certain other readers will resonate with different examples. A sense of Africa in all its diversity permeates this anthology, which brings with it a resonance for locals, and perhaps a taste of the exotic for non-Africans. The tales run the spectrum, from lit fic through to spec fic, and if you’re in the mood to dip into fresh voices worth keeping an eye out for in the future, then you can’t go wrong with The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories. Here you’ll find tales that are humorous, disconcerting, dark or poignant; they will quietly slip you into unexpected realities for a short spell, as all good short stories should.

Five minutes with Diane Awerbuck, Bloody Parchment 2012 finalist

Diane Awerbuck is well known in South African literary circles, and I was overjoyed when she entered our competition last year. Her story, which appears in Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar and Other Stories, is visceral and rather unsettling. A big welcome to Diane.

What planted the seed for your story?

I knew someone who'd had mouth cancer. They really did cut off her tongue – or the front part. It seemed...atrocious; Biblical; ultimately useless.

Most of the Obs details in the story are real: I just saw or heard them because I walked up and down that road a lot. (I've only recently bought a car.)

The Viola character is also the woman in my novel, Home Remedies, which is the story of her crazy middle age. Duiweltjie is about her later infirmity: the injury to her mouth is significant.

What are some of the themes you treated in your tale?

The disempowerment of disease; the surge of power you feel as a young person in the face of someone decrepit; the comfort of birds when you are confined; revenge; cruelty; helplesssness; memory; our inability – as Hirst has already said – to really conceptualise death.

What are the hallmarks of a great horror/dark fantasy author and story?

An image that resonates, so that when you yourself visit the place you remember the narrative. The story overlays the ordinary reality with the surreal or hyper-real. This is not to say that banality is not horrific: of course it is.

How do you approach your creative process?

I'm dormant in summer. In autumn I get lazy. In winter I get so irritable I churn out a book that purges the me-grims.

What are you working on now?


A novel called The Little People, about a cameraman in the film industry and a psychic. They are filming a documentary about the alleged possession of Matric girls in a Kimberley boarding school. It's also to do with the water crisis that happened there last year, and the disused mines, the weirdness of the Northern Cape, like Area 52. But in a fun, happy way.

Short Story Day Africa is also coming up in June, and I'm involved there