The Institute of Taxi Poetry, by Imraan Coovadia

The Institute of Taxi Poetry, by Imraan Coovadia. Random House Struik Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2012. ISBN 9781415201657 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0165-7

"The Institute of Taxi Poetry", Dr. Imraan Coovadia's funniest novel yet is also his most original. Always beautifully depicted and a story that's as unexpected as the pensive poems themselves.

Imraan Coovadia  

Monday

Problem #1: There was a cat, Marmalade, who was out of his mind. Plus, Solly Greenfields, the only friend I could bear, had been shot dead in his railway cottage near Woodstock Main Road. If you told me I was in for the most complicated week of my life, then I couldn't contradict you on that. But I might try. When I went to Solly's funeral Monday, I thought nobody had a solid reason to do him in. He was an old man, which meant his adversaries were also getting on. The taxi companies had never forgiven him for starting the Road Safety Council. Yet that was years ago. I hadn't heard about any new enemies. Solly would have been proud to mention them. He had been quiet recently, content with the trouble he earned over a lifetime as a great taxi poet. I was among the first of Solly's interns, by the way, and maybe not the one who displeased him the most, and maybe that was the closest either of us came to a proper relationship. Who would kill Solly? There were no obvious suspects. Two bullets had been found in the wall in the corridor of the house. They had to be dug out of the old plaster. The other bullets were in the victim, who was discovered in his dressing gown, lying on the couch with the scuffed purple buttons, which stood in the corner of the lounge. The bathtub was slopping full of cold water, and the needle of the record player was caught on a Dollar Brand album. The tub would be full. It was the temple of Solly's domestic existence, surrounded by the red and green hotel soaps left over from a rare period of formal employment. He got into the bath when visitors were around, especially his interns. He was so heavy that you expected the porcelain tub to rock back and forth on its iron feet. But that didn't prevent him from removing his clothes at the drop of a hat. For a fat old man, he wasn't ashamed to be naked and, in fact, he was finicky about the condition of his skin, from his freckled neck to his feet. Solly's neck got thinner and stronger and redder as he got older until it was the most vigorous thing about him. The crime rate meant you had to be tough to live in that area, Woodstock, Salt River, Observatory, and the warehouses interspersed with concrete blocks of flats between the railway line and the harbour. There was no waiting for the car from the security company to arrive. You had to be prepared for self-defence. When somebody crossed onto Solly's property in the Woodstock way, on the way to somewhere else or just to check if there was anything on the premises worth taking, Solly pushed the offender out of the gate, flexing his neck like a dilapidated bull. He didn't fear to get knifed. Right to the end there was this fearless quality which crackled out of him, like electricity, and which he provoked in his interns in the field of taxi poetry. In his seventies, Solly was crammed with projects, and thoughts, and burning pleasures, and hatreds which burned just as high, right to the top of his brown old head. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel: The Institute of Taxi Poetry, by Imraan Coovadia.

Title: The Institute of Taxi Poetry
Author: Imraan Coovadia
Genre: Novel
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2012
ISBN 9781415201657 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0165-7
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 224 pages