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Lockdown: The Corona Chronicles
The first Corona book to be released in South Africa, Lockdown captures the mood of our times through a tapestry of South African voice, capturing stories from the creative front. In this unprecedented time in global history of panic, passion and pandemonium, a sterling list of Melinda Ferguson Books best authors shine as contributors.
179 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 6, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 26, 2020
'South Africa is being held up as a paragon of the Global South, we are defying all expectation as a country doing so very well, uniting to fight the virus – an African country, nonetheless. We have not known such global admiration and praise since the dawn of the Rainbow Nation when the USA learned the name Mandela and couldn’t stop repeating it for a decade ... Ramaphosa has washed his hands clean of the blood of the miners and has been re-baptised a man of the people.'
This is billed as one of the fastest books ever written and published in South Africa: 17 writers each produced a personal Covid-19 story for publisher Melinda Ferguson in a week, who came up with the idea a few days before our national lockdown came into effect on 27 March. Of course, it is only available as an ebook, because printing is not deemed an essential service in South Africa during the pandemic, and hence the publishing industry has taken quite a knock.
I recently read an opinion piece in the Mail & Guardian entitled ‘Let’s get real on social media right now’, where John Davenport argues that “pretending that the lockdown is an #amazing opportunity for personal growth is destructive.” He says it is okay for people to lose their shit and not to be ashamed about it.
What I loved about Lockdown: The Corona Chronicles is that it articulates what so many of us are experiencing and living at this precise time-capsule-of-an-apocalypse-horror-movie moment. We realise that all those books and films about aliens and zombies did not prepare us at all for the banality, combined with the nail-biting frustration of it all, not to mention the heartbreak and sheer anxiety as small businesses fold, people see their livelihoods snuffed out overnight, and countless others go hungry (and angry) as they fall through the social net of our hugely unequal and unprepared society.
History is not only facts and figures. In the future, sociologists will look at books like this in order to gauge how people responded to this extraordinary and seismic global upheaval, which is cutting like a knife through the fabric that binds us to our families, our jobs, our communities, and indeed the world.
I really enjoyed this book. Reading about other similar experiences is, of course, not only cathartic, but gives one hope as to the ultimate resilience of not only South Africans, but everyone in the world at the moment going through the same shit storm.
Not one to let a mere virus get in the way of her publishing ambitions, let alone a crumbling global world order, I am looking forward to reading Lockdown Extended, which has an astonishing line-up of 30 stories from the cream of the crop of South African writers.
And given that from 1 May South Africa goes into Level 4 from its hard lockdown, which bizarrely introduces a national curfew from 05:00 to 20:00, as well as still confining people to their homes, not visiting friends or family, and only being able to buy essential items (thankfully winter underwear is on the list), along with ‘limited’ exercise to distract us from cabin fever, I am curious to see what Melinda Ferguson is going to produce next!
This is billed as one of the fastest books ever written and published in South Africa: 17 writers each produced a personal Covid-19 story for publisher Melinda Ferguson in a week, who came up with the idea a few days before our national lockdown came into effect on 27 March. Of course, it is only available as an ebook, because printing is not deemed an essential service in South Africa during the pandemic, and hence the publishing industry has taken quite a knock.
I recently read an opinion piece in the Mail & Guardian entitled ‘Let’s get real on social media right now’, where John Davenport argues that “pretending that the lockdown is an #amazing opportunity for personal growth is destructive.” He says it is okay for people to lose their shit and not to be ashamed about it.
What I loved about Lockdown: The Corona Chronicles is that it articulates what so many of us are experiencing and living at this precise time-capsule-of-an-apocalypse-horror-movie moment. We realise that all those books and films about aliens and zombies did not prepare us at all for the banality, combined with the nail-biting frustration of it all, not to mention the heartbreak and sheer anxiety as small businesses fold, people see their livelihoods snuffed out overnight, and countless others go hungry (and angry) as they fall through the social net of our hugely unequal and unprepared society.
History is not only facts and figures. In the future, sociologists will look at books like this in order to gauge how people responded to this extraordinary and seismic global upheaval, which is cutting like a knife through the fabric that binds us to our families, our jobs, our communities, and indeed the world.
I really enjoyed this book. Reading about other similar experiences is, of course, not only cathartic, but gives one hope as to the ultimate resilience of not only South Africans, but everyone in the world at the moment going through the same shit storm.
Not one to let a mere virus get in the way of her publishing ambitions, let alone a crumbling global world order, I am looking forward to reading Lockdown Extended, which has an astonishing line-up of 30 stories from the cream of the crop of South African writers.
And given that from 1 May South Africa goes into Level 4 from its hard lockdown, which bizarrely introduces a national curfew from 05:00 to 20:00, as well as still confining people to their homes, not visiting friends or family, and only being able to buy essential items (thankfully winter underwear is on the list), along with ‘limited’ exercise to distract us from cabin fever, I am curious to see what Melinda Ferguson is going to produce next!
April 16, 2020
If anyone had the ability to organize and curate what could possibly be “the fastest book in history”, it would be the somewhat madcap and marvelously maverick Melinda Ferguson. And that is exactly what she did: corralling some of the countries finest wordsmiths and asking them to give the reader a glimpse into their unique experiences of the government-mandated state of Lockdown, imposed on all citizens to “flatten the curve” of the deadly Corona Virus.
The list of contributors is like a bibliophile’s wet dream. I honestly wouldn’t mind spending an indefinite number of days locked up with the likes of Ben Travato, Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, Eva Mazza, Professor Ismail Lagardien, Tracy Going, Christy Chilimigras et al. Reluctantly pushing my apocalyptic fantasies aside, I settled for simply delving into their words, penned Polaroid snapshots of their diverse and distinctive experiences of the “new normal that is utterly abnormal” - my description - called Lockdown.
The book encompasses essays as diverse as the contributors themselves and spans perspectives just as singular as their writing styles. Ben Trovato’s keen observation skills and dry wit cannot de outdone. The poignancy of Christy Chilimigras’s green wingback chair and the bourgeoisie burden of Dave Muller’s chocolate cake. Helena Kriel’s words, dense and descriptive and divine. Robert Hamblin’s rage threatening to jump from the page and interrupt the reader’s carefully-scheduled Zoom meditation class. From Lindiwe Hani questioning, “Is it possible to suffer from PTSD from events you were not a part of?” while she dances with the spirit of her deceased father to Kelly-Eve Koopman’s gripping dystopian tale outlining the seemingly inevitable descent into acceptable societal madness.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s words resonated deeply as she wrote of issues that I am passionate about: addiction recovery, mental health concerns and motherhood. Not much forethought has been given to the addicted populations – both in recovery and not - and how they will navigate their own madness, their uncontrollable afflictions, without access to support and vital resources.
She writes, “My own personal reality is that any one of several monsters I’m already living with could take me out way before a microscopic parasite decides to use me as its host. Borderline, bi-polar, anxiety and depression – not to mention their motley-crew of comrades, self-harm, anorexia and addiction – are all ready to launch their unwavering, potentially deadly assault upon me at the slightest hint of vulnerability. And right now I’m vulnerable as f*ck. Four months post-partum, still feeling ripped from c*nt to craw and single-parenting my way through a global f*cking pandemic.”
The undeniable thread that connects the contributions to this book is that of privilege; making the overwhelming needs of the homeless, the underprivileged, the disenfranchised, the desperate and disadvantaged even more conspicuous by its absence. As, Pumla Dineo Gqola writes, ““kuhlekwa nokuba kubhuiiwe” (we laugh even in the presence of death).”
But another unmistakable thread also ties the tales to one another: that of hope. Hope spreads through the book like the virus itself. And if there is anything worth holding onto right now, it is hope.
The list of contributors is like a bibliophile’s wet dream. I honestly wouldn’t mind spending an indefinite number of days locked up with the likes of Ben Travato, Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, Eva Mazza, Professor Ismail Lagardien, Tracy Going, Christy Chilimigras et al. Reluctantly pushing my apocalyptic fantasies aside, I settled for simply delving into their words, penned Polaroid snapshots of their diverse and distinctive experiences of the “new normal that is utterly abnormal” - my description - called Lockdown.
The book encompasses essays as diverse as the contributors themselves and spans perspectives just as singular as their writing styles. Ben Trovato’s keen observation skills and dry wit cannot de outdone. The poignancy of Christy Chilimigras’s green wingback chair and the bourgeoisie burden of Dave Muller’s chocolate cake. Helena Kriel’s words, dense and descriptive and divine. Robert Hamblin’s rage threatening to jump from the page and interrupt the reader’s carefully-scheduled Zoom meditation class. From Lindiwe Hani questioning, “Is it possible to suffer from PTSD from events you were not a part of?” while she dances with the spirit of her deceased father to Kelly-Eve Koopman’s gripping dystopian tale outlining the seemingly inevitable descent into acceptable societal madness.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s words resonated deeply as she wrote of issues that I am passionate about: addiction recovery, mental health concerns and motherhood. Not much forethought has been given to the addicted populations – both in recovery and not - and how they will navigate their own madness, their uncontrollable afflictions, without access to support and vital resources.
She writes, “My own personal reality is that any one of several monsters I’m already living with could take me out way before a microscopic parasite decides to use me as its host. Borderline, bi-polar, anxiety and depression – not to mention their motley-crew of comrades, self-harm, anorexia and addiction – are all ready to launch their unwavering, potentially deadly assault upon me at the slightest hint of vulnerability. And right now I’m vulnerable as f*ck. Four months post-partum, still feeling ripped from c*nt to craw and single-parenting my way through a global f*cking pandemic.”
The undeniable thread that connects the contributions to this book is that of privilege; making the overwhelming needs of the homeless, the underprivileged, the disenfranchised, the desperate and disadvantaged even more conspicuous by its absence. As, Pumla Dineo Gqola writes, ““kuhlekwa nokuba kubhuiiwe” (we laugh even in the presence of death).”
But another unmistakable thread also ties the tales to one another: that of hope. Hope spreads through the book like the virus itself. And if there is anything worth holding onto right now, it is hope.
July 1, 2020
The start of Lockdown seems to have been quite an adjustment for our authors. I knew it was coming and what to expect from following what was happening in Italy and speaking to a friend of my brother's who was in China when it started. They had 3 months of harder lockdown before we even started. I'm more stressed now that it's around me TBH.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews