When running writing workshops, I often use her story Sanctuary (which came second place in the BBC International Short Story Award in 2012) to show interesting ways to build dramatic tension, in this case with a series of gates as the protagonist is moving through farms in rural South Africa to the scene of the climax of her story. Her short story collection Homing is one of the best collections I have ever read. I’ve always thought she is a master at short story. I’d only read her novel Nineveh and felt she was stronger in the short story genre— that was until I read Green Lion.
Green Lion is set in Cape Town. We begin the story with Con, a thirty something year old man who has moved back to South Africa after spending time living in UK. He’s back with his richer, younger, and far more driven girlfriend Elyse, a dancer. His childhood friend, Mark has been mauled by a lion at the breeding park where the staff are trying to breed and eventually re-introduce black-maned lions to Table Mountain. Because of the mauling, the male lion must be shot and the breeding programmed scuppered, leaving behind only the lioness, Sekhmet. Mark is lying in the hospital in a coma.
