About Afrish by Verenia Keet
AFRISH is about race and identity, haves and have-nots, and spans two decades leading into South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy. The plot is woven around Meisie Marais and her quest to escape the ghosts of her past, and Sydney Higgins, who when his parents die in a tragic car accident, is thrust into the future in search of a family secret.
Meisie is both inadvertently and forcefully separated from the security of her middle class White family because her view of race is poles apart from that of her father’s support for apartheid, and his unforgiving stance of the path his daughter wishes to follow. Sydney, on the other hand, raised in an environment of extreme wealth, is hurtled headlong into discovering surprising details about his life as willed in his father’s final testament.
Meisie and Sydney do not meet each other throughout the story, but each is confronted with erasing race to honor identity.
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There isn’t much to tell about Verenia. Her story is a brief one. She grew up and schooled in Bonteheuwel, Cape Town. She also lived in Johannesburg for seven years, after which itchy feet led her to spread her wings, and for the following 34 years – cumulatively until the present – she has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Russia.
Verenia has always possessed a passion for the English language, and has a voracious appetite for reading. Her professional life has witnessed her working in newspaper and newsroom environments, with a three-year stint as a television correspondent. She has also reported for international humanitarian agencies focused on human development, and natural and man-made disasters such as earthquakes, floods, war zones and regions experiencing tremendous political upheaval.
In Pakistan, where she resided for more than a decade, Verenia Keet authored several ‘fact as fiction’ short stories based on community development processes, and natural and man-made disasters for the international humanitarian community focused on Pakistan.
Alternatively, she has worked as an English language teacher.
Needless to say, Verenia is a very curious person and travel has allowed her to have a panoramic view of life. Travel has also broadened her knowledge about many aspects related to the world we populate.
Despite the many years Verenia has lived ‘elsewhere’ she refers to Cape Town as ‘home’ and South Africa as her ‘go to’ subject for inspiration to write.
Verenia resided in Yakutsk – a city in the far northeast of Russia in the shadow of the north pole – for seven years, and currently lives in Moscow.