The author of “South Africa: In the Name of the Father” opens up about anger as inspiration, ghostwriting, and confronting uncomfortable truths about post-apartheid politics

Defiance Press: What first drew you to writing? Was there a particular moment or book that sparked that initial flame?

Angus Douglas: It was really a combination of being moved by great literature and feeling compelled to tell stories that aren’t being heard. With South Africa: In the Name of the Father, I was driven by this burning need to share a narrative that I believed was being systematically ignored. There’s also something about the challenge of a longform project that appealed to me—books force you to really interrogate what you want to say and then maintain that vision across hundreds of pages.

DP: You’ve mentioned that anger is your greatest source of inspiration. That’s refreshingly honest. Tell us more about that.

Douglas: [Laughs] Well, I wish I could say I’m inspired by sunsets and poetry, but honestly, there’s no creative fuel quite like righteous anger. Fortunately—or unfortunately—I write about South African politics, and our politicians provide me with an endless supply of material to be anguished about. It keeps the creative fires burning, I’ll give them that.

DP: Your workspace sounds decidedly unglamorous—a dining room table in a one-bedroom apartment. How do you make that work?

Douglas: [Shrugs] It’s not ideal, but it gets the job done. When I get restless or need a change of scenery, I’ll pack up and head to a coffee shop or even the gym. Sometimes the constraint actually helps—there’s nowhere to hide from the work when your entire world is that dining room table.

DP: Walk us through a typical writing day.

Douglas: I’m very much a morning person when it comes to writing. I wake up, grab something to eat, and dive straight in. I can usually maintain that focused intensity for about two hours before my brain starts to fog. Then I’ll break for lunch and tea, maybe take the afternoon off, and if I’m feeling it, I’ll work into the evening. The key is recognizing when you’re productive and when you’re just staring at a blank screen.

DP: You’ve written three books, including two as a ghostwriter. That’s quite a range—from chronic pain to voice artistry to South African politics.

Douglas: The ghostwriting was fascinating in its own way. Pain Beyond Belief was with a friend who suffers from chronic pain—obviously not the most uplifting subject matter, but an important story. Then there was Confessions of a Voice Artist, which was the complete opposite—written with someone who suffers from chronic happiness and has lived this absolutely charmed life in South Africa’s voice-over industry.

But South Africa: In the Name of the Father is my favorite because it’s my story about this country and all my complex, conflicted feelings about it.

DP: What surprised you most about the book-writing process?

Douglas: Churchill was right when he said writing a book is “a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” He also supposedly said it starts as your mistress, becomes your master, and finally turns into a monster. That’s painfully accurate. The romance definitely wears off, and you’re left with this grim determination to finish the damn thing and give readers something worthwhile. But what caught me off guard was how much it improved my discipline as a writer. It’s a worthy struggle in that sense.

DP: Which book was the most satisfying to write?

Douglas: Definitely South Africa: In the Name of the Father. It gave me a chance to get some revenge against the country’s corrupt politicians. There was real satisfaction in that—being able to call them out on the page, to hold them accountable in print.

DP: You’ve shared a powerful excerpt about joining in the toyi-toyi as a seventeen-year-old white student. That moment seems to have fundamentally shifted your understanding of South Africa.

Douglas: Absolutely. I had this naive, idealistic view shaped by Martin Luther King and Alan Paton—I saw the Struggle as essentially a civil rights movement, a cry for integration within a Western democratic framework. But when I joined those African students in that war dance from the Rhodesian Bush War, it hit me that I had the country completely wrong.

Here I was, this white kid who’d lived a cushy life of maids and tennis lessons, dancing with people who, by all rights, should have wanted to lynch me. The Chinese, Cubans, and Soviets were their heroes—the ones who’d given them arms and support while Reagan and Thatcher labeled them terrorists. It was a profound moment of reckoning.

DP: When you’re not writing, how do you recharge?

Douglas: I’m a bit of a contradiction—I love the physical and the intellectual. I’ll go for walks in the mountains or jogs on the beach, but I’m also somewhat addicted to YouTube videos. I spend hours listening to intelligent people having intelligent conversations about everything from philosophy to geopolitics, religion to literature. It’s my way of staying intellectually fed.

DP: Any advice for writers struggling with block?

Douglas: I read somewhere that the best cure for writer’s block is more research. That often works, though sometimes you just have to start typing and see where it takes you. The blank page is only intimidating if you let it stay blank.

“South Africa: In the Name of the Father” is available now through Defiance Press.