Negative criticism: Kenyan writers must learn to grow a thick skin

His name was Richard de Nooy. Still is. A South African writer who has stayed in Holland for many years. We met at the Cape Town Book Fair a year after both our first novels had come out. We got along and shared laughs. Later, we exchanged books. I enjoyed his thriller, Six Fang Marks and a Tetanus Shot. He did not get The Madams. And wrote a review of it on his blog. Among the things he said was that the book was ridiculous as it was unrealistic that any man would have a relationship with their domestic worker.

I sent him an e-mail as soon as I saw the reply on his blog, wondering how out of touch with his home country and indeed continent he was. Married men were having affairs with their domestic workers all the time, between black men and their black domestic workers, and white men and their black domestic workers too. As a writer he was probably sensitive to my pain so he replied with an offer, “do you want a right of reply on my blog?” I thought about it and despite my heartbreak, I refused.

Upon reflection, then as now, I agreed with my friend and writer Thando Mgqolozana that “the worst thing that could happen to a work of art is the artist opening their mouth to explain what it means.” In fact, I was pretty embarrassed at my outburst e-mail to Richard de Nooy. All previous reviews on the book in the past had been favourable.

I had never taken time to e-mail the reviewers and respond to thank them. Why was I then taking umbrage at this one negative review? But that is human nature, I suppose.

OUT OF YOUR HANDS

I have been thinking of this as I observed the critic-writer furore of the past few weeks in these pages. I cannot speak for critics as I am not much of one, but I am a writer. And as a writer there are certain things I have experienced and, perhaps, can share with other writers who find themselves in the same situation I found myself in when Richard wrote his review.

If a manuscript is with a good publisher, it goes through four stages of reading before it gets published.

The writer sends their manuscript. If the publisher finds merit in the submitted (usually three chapters and a synopsis of the book), they get back to the writer showing interest and asking for the full manuscript within a certain period of time.

The writer then sends the full manuscript. In the South African publishing industry (a model I will adopt one day when I start my transcontinental publishing firm, thank you in advance to the funding Messrs Chandaria, Dangote and Motsepe), the publisher then sends the manuscript to three respected readers.

The readers generate readers’ reports and recommend whether the manuscript is worth publishing and if not yet, what could be improved. The writer gets the reports and may be asked to do rewrites before they are linked with a professional editor. After editing, the writer finally gets to read proofs, alerting the publisher to any mistakes that may exist. With these taken care of, our manuscript becomes a book.

It may have your name on the cover but when a manuscript becomes a book, and is in retail spaces, it becomes less yours and more the reader’s. And readers, as much as writers, are shaped by their experiences. Mostly because after reflection, I have noted that the bad criticism of my work has helped me note what I may need to work on for future works. At other times though,  where the criticism has been downright mean and personal with little reference to my work, I ignore and whisper a “shauri yako” to the critic as I live to write another day. But then, there is no manual of doing these things correctly and I may be the writer who is getting it wrong in not responding.

Oh, and de Nooy and I are still friends after that first negative criticism. He even claimed to have enjoyed my last novel. But that may just be because I bought him a drink at a literary festival we both attended last year.