When ethics drive you mad

In his second novel, Canary, Dr Onke Mazibuko writes about whistleblowing, corporate bullying and mental health

- Rolland Simpi Motaung

You would swear Dr Onke Mazibuko is a mathematician in how he explains the writing process for his latest novel, Canary.

Or perhaps a mad scientist with a keyboard and stories to prove his hypothesis.

I meet the placid psychologist in Maboneng, Johannesburg, at a trendy restaurant named after one of Miriam Makeba's hit songs - Pata Pata. In 2022 when he released his debut novel, The Second Verse, the author wasn't a doctor. The title was brought about by the recent completion of his PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Pretoria and Canary was part of the coursework.

Unlike the debut novel that took only a few drafts to write, Dr Mazibuko tells me that the creation of Canary involved 12 to 15 drafts. This included a major rewrite after his supervisor found the fifteenth draft too long, resulting in a final 84000-word version driven by a first-person narrative.

"In my frustration I decided I was going to ignore all 15 drafts. I was going to rewrite this thing and see what happened. And when I did that, I wrote about 62000 words. Then I went back to one of the old versions because I really loved those characters."

It is these numbers that often brought images of Dr Mazibuko mulling over words deep in the night in his secret basement.

True to his profession, Dr Mazibuko wanted to quench his curiosity about the mental health implications of a person being put under highly stressful situations. As such, Canary is a nail-biting psychological thriller about an honest man's life falling apart for doing the right thing.

After years of loyal work for Arms-Tech Industries, Maks Ntaka, the protagonist, has found proof of serious corruption in his department. Maks battles with turning into a whistleblower or staying mum to save his job. Through Maks, the novel examines how corruption, toxic workplace environments and family traumas can have dreadful effects on one's mental health.