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So, how did a doctor end up writing novels? I get asked this almost on a daily basis, which is interesting because in my mind the converse of the question is more applicable to my situation: how did a writer end up studying medicine? For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a novelist and yet at some stage during my Standard 9 year I applied to study medicine at UCT. Perhaps I was concerned about what people would think: medicine is, after all, considered a far more respectable career than writing. Or perhaps it was because my career guidance assessment suggested that I study medicine or join the army and the former represented the lesser evil.Be that as it may, after I completed my matric year I registered to do an MBChB at UCT. It would be seven years before I would write anything non-academic again.
Medicine is not a cushy career...
As anyone who has read either of my novels will know, medicine is not a cushy career to follow, especially in South Africa and by the end of my first year as a registrar in internal medicine I was ready to be admitted to a psychiatric institute.
Instead of succumbing to a nervous breakdown, I resigned from my post and applied to do an MA in creative writing at UCT (which some might consider an even worse fate). I was accepted and spent two years drooling at the feet of South African greats such as Andre Brink, Damon Galgut and Etienne van Heerden. My dissertation for the MA became The Karma Suture.
To the great relief of my parents, I did not forsake medicine entirely and have now managed to establish a good balance between writing and doctoring. I'm often asked whether I would ever leave medicine completely. The answer is negative, not only because royalties from writing would force me to became a barefoot hermit who subsides on Flings, but because medicine provides me with an unparalleled platform from which to observe the intricacies of human nature.
Would I ever stop writing?
I read a quote once by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.I cannot remember the exact wording, and no doubt he said it far more poetically than I can ever presume to, but it was to the effect of 'if one can even imagine living without writing, one is not a writer'. Writing is the way in which I make sense of the world. It is my therapy, my entertainment, my soulmate, my nemesis, and my sanity. |
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