‘There’s something about Africa,” says Australian author Tony Park. “It just gets under your skin.” Park is a self-confessed “Africa addict”.
Although he’s well acquainted with the Australian outback, it’s the extensive trails he’s carved through Africa – Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Uganda – that have left the greatest impression on him. In his words, “Africa is larger than life and full of characters”.
Park’s intrigue-packed pulp fiction, in the vein of Wilbur Smith, gives centre stage to action, suspense and more than a hint of romance. All are set against the geopolitical backdrop of the fabled “dark continent”, and all are cinematic easy-reads that try to capture the sensual elements of Sub-Sahara: its uninterrupted vistas and the warmth of its sun.
Park writes all his fiction on location. Writing to him is an organic affair, beginning with the inspiration of his environment.
“Wherever we happen to be travelling is where I set the action,” he says. “I often don’t start off with a plot. I just make it up as I go along.”
This was the case with his latest, The Delta, a tale of conspiracy and eco-terrorism set on the Okavango.
“I try to do my research as I go along,” says Park. “With The Delta, I drew on recent history. There was a plan about 12 years ago to put a dam on the Okavango River, which is the premise of the book.”
The novel presupposes that construction of the dam went ahead.
While in the past Park has focused on issues such as poaching and piracy, he uses this imaginary historical event to explore environmental problems.
“It’s drawing on concerns about what impact this dam would have, if it was built, on the Okavango Delta. In the book, the dam does get built, fictitiously, and someone decides they’re going to blow it up.”
The novel is set during a time of drought during which the Okavango begins to dry up. This brings to the fore the “competing needs of wildlife versus people,” says Park.
“There is a coalition of landowners, safari operators and environmentalists who come together with a radical plan to blow the dam up.”
Leading the operation is a female mercenary, Sonja Kurtz, who finds herself caught up in a violent conspiracy, alongside her mercenary commander and her childhood sweetheart.
When asked what the he hopes will charm his audience, Park says: “The book’s got a strong emphasis on wildlife and the environment, but it’s also got romance and there’s a fair bit of action involved. When I first started writing, I thought I was writing for guys. But it turns out most of my readers are actually female. That was a nice surprise.”
For all of its harmless and approachable action and romance, however, there is another more troubling issue at work here. Park’s writing appears to follow on from a colonial heritage of literature, in which Africa is looked upon as a carnival of endless safaris and civil wars; an object of foreign fascination, a location of excitement that exists in the imagination as the perfect setting for adventure.
Like hearing Leonardo DiCaprio’s character shout, “This is Africa!” in Blood Diamond, there’s a certain uneasiness that accompanies these representations. To think that genuine socio-political conflicts which scar the continent can be appropriated as the source of blockbuster entertainment raises a host of concerns about how the portrait of Africa is drawn in fiction and what responsibilities writers have when they commit themselves to this endeavour.
Park, however, is writing for himself.
“I like mainstream mass market thrillers,” he says. “I like a good story and I like a pacy story. I read thrillers and crime novels. My novels are more escapist kind of novels. I read for enjoyment and relaxation.
“I find when I’m writing, I enjoy the process. It’s like reading a book in slow motion because I make it up as I go along.”
Like the other authors who occupy this genre, Park strives for a cinematic style of prose. It tends to be stripped-down, clean and uncluttered. But it also has an blockbuster sense for the visual.
“I don’t know if I consciously do that,” says Park. “I like to get the audience into the front row and let them turn on the screen for themselves.”
In the crime, suspense, drama and political conspiracy stakes, Park’s prose can match the best. But like the other writers in this curious genre, the reader needs to approach with a cautious eye: reality is often far stranger and more complex than this sort of fiction will allow.