Turbott Wolfe

by William Plomer

“It is an inexplicable lapse on the part of literary scholars and critics,” writes Nadine Gordimer in her Introduction, “that Turbott Wolfe is not recognised as a pyrotechnic presence in the canon of renegade colonialist literature along with Conrad.” Indeed, William Plomer’s astonishing first novel, which first appeared in 1926, ignited a firestorm of controversy in his native South Africa. At the novel’s center is Turbott Wolfe, a British trader who opens a general store in Lembuland. He befriends many of his black customers but has less luck ingratiating himself with the bigoted whites who have lived in the area for generations. Eventually, Wolfe and his comrades embrace miscegenation as the key to Africa’s future—the Young Africa, where the races have blurred. Provocative and deeply questioning, Turbott Wolfe remains a powerful chronicle of the intimate human consequences of racism.

Genres: Fiction, South Africa, Africa

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

William Charles Franklyn Plomer CBE (he pronounced the surname as ploomer) was a South African and British author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He was educated mostly in the United Kingdom, but described himself as an "Anglo-African-Asian".

He became famous in the Union of South Africa with his first novel, Turbott Wolfe, which had inter-racial love and marriage as a theme. He was co-founder of the short-lived literary magazine Voorslag ("Whiplash") with two other South African rebels, Roy Campbell and Laurens van der Post; it promoted a racially equal South Africa.

He spent the period from October 1926 to March 1929 in Japan, where he was friendly with Sherard Vines. There, according to biographers, he was in a same-sex relationship with a Japanese man. He was never openly gay during his lifetime; at most he alluded to the subject.

He then moved to England, and through his friendship with his publisher Virginia Woolf, entered the London literary circles. He became a literary editor, for Faber and Faber, and was a reader and literary adviser to Jonathan Cape, where he edited a number of Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Fleming dedicated Goldfinger to Plomer. He was active as a librettist, with Gloriana, Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son for Benjamin Britten.

Reviews

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Turbott Wolfe exploded like a bomb upon publication in Plomer's native South Africa. Plomer was just 22 when he wrote this novel which brutally exposed the attitude of white South Africa toward the black population. That was crime enough, but it was the novel's unashamed embrace of interracial sex that really cemented its notoriety. The story centres around the title character, a young man running a store in a native reserve, who becomes appalled by his white neighbours and captivated by a young black woman. It's a stunning and amazingly prescient book - with an instructive but hefty 70 page introduction by Laurens van der Post.
Sentus Libri 100 word reviews of overlooked books.

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

imagine dubbya bush's america offering a hand of peace to the world? i guess the shock that would have was what it must have been like in some ways to a south africa riddled deep in the midst of a racial problem. a white man offering his hand to a black. (and this, coincidentally, is a point thats picked out on in the book). written by a guy in his early twenties. a neat, succinct book that doesnt shock us in hindsight but you can image how it would have gone down then.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel of sensibility. Many sentences are a bit off, as are Plomer's observations and the protagonist’s position in South African society, where he stands between white and black, English and Afrikaan, commercial and artistic. There’s a lovely matter-of-factness that makes the novel work. You don’t really learn too much about South Africa, and yet reading the novel is a wonderful, eye-opening experience.