Before writing Die Dao van Daan van der Walt (translated into English by Michiel Heyns as The Dao of Daniel) I happened to see this letter in the Agony Aunt page of a magazine: I met an attractive widow. I am a widower, 78 years old. She is 68. We started going out regularly. Like friends. After dinner last night, we had coffee at her flat as usual. I went to her bathroom and when I returned to the living room, there she was sitting on the sofa, stark naked. I grabbed my jacket and left. What is wrong with her?
I told this story to a friend and he said his grandmother often bragged that his deceased grandfather never ever saw her naked. What’s the matter with these old people? Their culture? Traditions? Adam and Eve grabbing fig leaves to cover their nakedness? Subsequently I found this quotation from the poem, Roan Stallion, by Robinson Jeffers: ‘Humanity is the mould to break away from,’ and a story began forming in my head. I made notes about an old man who needed Viagra but then he found he was too embarrassed to ask his GP for a prescription. I realised humanity needed more than a Viagra pill. So I started writing Die Dao van Daan van der Walt, a book set in China.
The difficulties writing about China, where Daniel lived in a Buddhist monastery, were immense. How does one “show” and not “preach” when dealing with such a complex society was my challenge. Fortunately everything about China fascinated me. I observed the people and read widely about the country and its traditions. I ate their food. Oh, I had some of the best meals of my life in China and Malaysia. Surprises? Men’s public toilets at tourist bus stops have no doors. Tasty hairy crabs, which I loved to eat, were bred in sewerage water. The biggest surprise was that my first attempt at writing fiction was awarded six major literary prizes.
The characterisation of Daniel was difficult. How does one portray an elderly Kalahari farmer who reads his bible in Latin, is interested in classical mythology, fights with his son and tells his dead dog, when he had decided to look for a new lady friend, that sex is like koeksisters and milk tart on the front stoep of his farmhouse. More challenging was the characterisation of Daniel’s new local Chinese friend, You Mei, who had her own secrets, had only three fingers left on her one hand and who tells him that sex is not a sin in China.
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