Diane Awerbuck

Diane Awerbuck (born 1 April 1974) is a South African novelist, teacher and reviewer. Her novel, Gardening at Night, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, best first book (Africa and the Caribbean), and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2011, her collection of short stories, Cabin Fever, was published by Random House Struik. Her novel, Home Remedies, was published by Random House Struik in August 2012. She was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2014, and won the Short Story Day Africa competition the same year.

Quotes

 * We all have those roads-in-the-yellow-wood dudes –the unready loves who left us, or we left. Sometimes, in the small, shuddery hours, they come back. I think about them; I’m glad I knew them. Life is long. If you’re lucky.
 * Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Diane Awerbuck, author of "The ones that got away" (24 May 2023)


 * Novels are the most terrifying of the forms, apart from screenplays (which are basically the haiku of the fiction world, and which is why the good ones are hardly ever written by just one person).
 * Her reply when asked what draws her to writing short story


 * Writing is an aptitude. Sometimes you have more time and inclination for it, and sometimes you have children.
 * Her reply when asked if writing has become easier over the years


 * We steal; we hoard; we like the sounds of our own voices.
 * The meaning to her description of fiction writers being magpies


 * We all experience longing and magic, but we aren’t always good at knowing when they’re happening to us. Longing and magic don’t go away because we get older or more disappointed with our circumstances and selves.
 * Her reply when asked if she would consider her story to be characterised by magical realism


 * Middle-aged love is so devastating because this time round, you know exactly what’s at stake! Old-aged love is going to knock your thrombosis socks clean off!
 * The differences during middle-aged and old-aged period


 * The archaeology of aging is so interesting – what people think they are allowed to do; what they actually can do.
 * Sharing what should be expected in her new collection titled, Inside your body there are flowers.


 * Don’t do it. But also: if you want to, you will.
 * Tips for emerging and established writers