Die skryfwerkThe writing
Zain se drang om te skryf het in die tagtigs begin toe hy baie tyd op hande gehad het omdat niks vir hom uitgewerk het nie. Dit was die tyd van fotoverhale, tydskrif- en koerantlees. Hy het vreeslik gesukkel om te lees. Vergeet maar van die foto's wat hy so graag duideliker wou sien. “Veral die oulike vrouekarakters,” skerts hy graag met 'n ondeunde trek om die mond. “Seker dié dat ek vandag nog so deur vroue bekoor word.”
Die saadjie om te skryf is egter alreeds vroëer geplant toe hy nog in die laerskool was. Op pad skool toe het hy by die biblioteek verbygeloop en altyd gewonder hoe dit daarbinne lyk. Op 'n dag het hy dit daar in gewaag. Hy kon nie ophou om deur die boekrakke te loop en na al die boeke te kyk nie. Dit was vir hom soos 'n wonderwerk toe hy hoor dat hy van die boeke kon uitneem deur 'n lid van die biblioteek te word. Die eerste boeke wat so mooi in Afrikaans geskryf is het hy dieselfde middag klaar gelees en die volgende dag was hy terug vir sy volgende boeke. Hy het egter gou belangstelling in die stories verloor want dit het nie tot hom gespreek nie. Hy kon nie met die karakters en die agtergrond identifiseer waarteen dit afspeel nie. Dit was stories oor wit karakters en die wêreld waarin hulle leef. Dit het hom gepla dat karakters soos hy en volwasse bruin karakters soos sy pa, sy ma en volwassenes wat hy ken, as patetiese en nuttelose skepsels uitgebeeld word. Gevolglik het hy Engelse boeke uitgeneem. Die stories kon hy egter nie mooi volg nie. Toe besluit hy om sy eie stories te skryf en dit aan die Huisgenoot te stuur. Hy het gou agtergekom dat die stories oor bruin karakters teen die agtergrond waarin hulle bestaan nooit aanvaar sou word nie, want al sy verhale het teruggekom. Toe skep hy wit karakters en plaas hulle in die agtergrond waarin hulle bestaan. En sowaar, daar verskyn sy eerste kortverhaal, Die Kat, in die Huisgenoot van 1986.
So het hy vereers voortgegaan, vertel Zain, net om 'n voet in die wit gedomineerde Afrikaanse boekemark te kry. Met sy debuutroman was hy by die punt waar hy kon skryf soos hy rêrig wou. Hy het karakters geskep en die agtergronde geskets wat hy ken sodat bruin lesers hulself en hulle leefwêreld kon herken, sonder om wit lesers uit te sluit. “Ek skryf vir lesers,” sê Zain, “nie vir bruin, wit of swart lesers nie. Ek maak erns daarvan om karakters, wit, bruin en swart, gelykwaardig en geloofwaardig uit te beeld.”
Zain het 'n hekel daaraan dat wit skrywers bruin mense se stories vanuit hulle perspektief vertel, terwyl bruin skrywers se manuskripte grootliks afgekeur word. Nie dat hy teen wit skrywers gekant is wat dit doen nie. Dit is hulle reg om te skryf soos hulle wil. Bruin skrywers moet net die erkenning kry wat hulle verdien. “Ek is dankbaar vir die wit lesers wat my eerste boek gekoop en gelees het,” sê Zain. “Ek hoop julle doen dieselfde met Die Keerpunt, my tweede roman. Ek nooi bruin lesers wat nie juis boeke koop en Afrikaanse boeke lees nie om dit tog te doen. Hoe anders gaan ons stories outentiek vertel word en vir die nageslag bewaar word? Ons kan tog nie voortgaan om ons stories uit ander se perspektiewe te lees nie, kan ons?”
Zain se stem word sag en daar is 'n veraf uitdrukking in sy oë toe hy afsluit. “Toe ek op my produktiefste was en die stories my oorval het, het uitgewers dit geblus. Selfs ná die sukses van my debuutroman. En tog is daar nog baie stories in my wat vertel wil word. Die vlam is geblus maar die kole smeul nog en hunker om weer op te vlam. Want die mense oor wie ek skryf en hul stories, die van die weerlose stemloses wat tot niet verklaar is, en dit ken geen ras nie, leef nog binne my. Hulle wat oorheers, onderdruk, uitgebuit, afgekraak en mishandel word. Soos weerlose vroue, kinders, bejaardes en gestremdes. Net omdat hulle anders is en vra om hulself te wees. Lesers, besoek my webblad en luister na die lied van Die Keerpunt om julle te motiveer en te inspireer om die boek te koop. En om die doemprofete wat sê dat 'n skrywer wat sy boek uit die oortuiging van sy gemoed en met die hulp van kundiges in die publikasiespasie self publiseer nie sukses sal behaal nie verkeerd te bewys.”
Publikasies
Die Rolbalspeler, sy debuutroman, het in 2011 by Kwela verskyn.
Die Keerpunt, sy tweede roman, het in April 2026 verskyn.
Zain's urge to write began in the eighties, when he had a great deal of time on his hands because nothing had worked out for him. It was the era of photo stories, of reading magazines and newspapers. He struggled terribly to read. Never mind the photographs he so badly wanted to see more clearly. “Especially the pretty women characters,” he likes to joke, with a mischievous set to his mouth. “Probably why women still charm me so today.”
The seed of writing had, however, been planted earlier, while he was still in primary school. On his way to school he would walk past the library and always wonder what it looked like inside. One day he ventured in. He could not stop walking along the shelves and looking at all the books. It was like a miracle to him when he heard he could take books out by becoming a member of the library. The first books, written so beautifully in Afrikaans, he finished that same afternoon, and the next day he was back for the next ones. But he soon lost interest in the stories, because they did not speak to him. He could not identify with the characters or with the setting they played out against. They were stories about white characters and the world they lived in. It troubled him that characters like himself, and grown coloured characters like his father, his mother and the adults he knew, were portrayed as pathetic and useless creatures. So he took out English books instead. But those stories he could not follow well. Then he decided to write his own stories and send them to Huisgenoot. He soon realised that stories about coloured characters, set against the background in which they existed, would never be accepted, because every one of his stories came back. So he created white characters and placed them in the setting in which they existed. And sure enough, his first short story, Die Kat, appeared in Huisgenoot in 1986.
For a while he carried on that way, Zain says, simply to get a foot into the white-dominated Afrikaans book market. With his debut novel he reached the point where he could write as he really wanted to. He created characters and sketched the settings he knew, so that coloured readers could recognise themselves and their world, without shutting white readers out. “I write for readers,” Zain says, “not for coloured, white or black readers. I take care to portray characters — white, coloured and black — as equals, and believably.”
Zain dislikes that white writers tell coloured people's stories from their own perspective, while coloured writers' manuscripts are largely turned down. Not that he is against white writers who do it. It is their right to write as they wish. Coloured writers must simply get the recognition they deserve. “I am grateful for the white readers who bought and read my first book,” Zain says. “I hope you do the same with Die Keerpunt, my second novel. And I invite coloured readers who do not much buy books or read Afrikaans books to do so all the same. How else are our stories going to be told authentically and preserved for those who come after us? We surely cannot carry on reading our own stories through other people's eyes, can we?”
Zain's voice softens and there is a faraway look in his eyes as he closes. “When I was at my most productive and the stories came flooding at me, publishers quenched it. Even after the success of my debut novel. And yet there are still many stories in me that want to be told. The flame has been quenched, but the coals still smoulder and long to flare up again. Because the people I write about and their stories — those of the defenceless voiceless who have been declared of no account, and that knows no race — still live inside me. Those who are dominated, oppressed, exploited, torn down and ill-treated. Like defenceless women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Only because they are different and ask to be themselves. Readers, visit my web page and listen to the song of Die Keerpunt to motivate and inspire you to buy the book. And to prove wrong the prophets of doom who say that a writer who publishes his book himself, out of the conviction of his heart and with the help of experts in the publishing space, will not succeed.”
Publications
Die Rolbalspeler, his debut novel, appeared with Kwela in 2011.
Die Keerpunt, his second novel, appeared in April 2026.