Final Edition & Union Jack by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid [Mcdermid, Val]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802165626
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mary Nkobo’s masterpiece, Ikhaya Lamaqhawe, this week became the most controversial Booker Prize winner in the history of the award.

Ikhaya Lamaqhawe (Home of the Heroes) was first published under the name of feminist author Cordelia Brown.

But following the issue of a warrant for Brown’s arrest for the murder of Scottish journalist Alison Maxwell, the truth about Ikhaya Lamaqhawe‘s authorship came to light.

It was the work of African teacher Mary Nkobo, who has disappeared in South Africa after her arrest last year by the secret police. Friends fear that she has been killed.

Like a previous Booker winner, Schindler’s Ark, the book is a fictionalised version of real events. Ikhaya Lamaqhawe is the thinly disguised story of Mary Nkobo’s struggle to uncover the truth about her fiancé Joshua Shabala who was murdered by South African security forces. When she finally uncovered the truth, she too vanished.

Mary had the manuscript smuggled out via Zimbabwe prior to her disappearance. She sent it to Cordelia Brown, because they had been in correspondence about Brown’s work.

Believing that she was the only person who had actually seen the manuscript, Brown presented it to her publishers as her own work. Ikhaya Lamaqhawe was published under her name last December.

But her secret was not safe. Police sources say that Alison Maxwell uncovered the truth, and Brown killed her to maintain the fiction of her authorship of Ikhaya Lamaqhawe.

Another journalist, Jackie Mitchell, was found guilty of the murder, and had served some months in prison when the real sequence of events was uncovered by a private investigator working for Miss Mitchell’s lawyers.

By the time Brown’s imposture was discovered, she had fled the country, becoming the literary world’s Lord Lucan.

Ikhaya Lamaqhawe was recalled and reissued under Mary Nkobo’s name, and the Booker judges rewarded the undoubted power and clarity of the book on Thursday night.

The book’s publisher, Jonas Milner, said, “It has been a very difficult and embarrassing experience for us. No one likes to be conned. We had no reason to be suspicious, because we knew Cordelia Brown was a very talented and versatile writer.

“But I’m glad to say that it has all been sorted out now. Ikhaya Lamaqhawe was a very worthy winner.

“Mary Nkobo’s mother, who accepted the award on her behalf, has announced that the money will go into a trust to award bursaries to black writers.”

Justice may have been done to Mary Nkobo. But it awaits Cordelia Brown, still on the missing list.

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