The Days Lived in Yellow

How do we come to know what we think we know? What evidence do we use to shape what we conceive of as truth? How does who we are—our positionality—impact how we read and make sense of the world around us? These are the questions that are at the heart of my novel, The Days Lived in Yellow. In the novel, a series of academics and writers, living in different eras, determine, debate and debunk the fact that the African adventure books supposedly written by the hugely popular and highly prolific Smith A. Wilburton were really written by him. Could the novels really have been written by former Location Superintendent, C Hollier? Were these very “manly” books really written by a woman who simply wanted to be known as The Lady Doctor? Were the admittedly formulaic books actually written by a series of ghost writers? Did Smith A. Wilburton ever really exist? Does it matter who writes African literature? Should it matter? Through the academics’ and writers’ examination of the question of authorship, the novel explores how what we know and how we know it is often contingent on who we are and our place in the world.