Trigger

by Linda Mannheim

Publication Date: 28 Sept. 2015



In the dying days of South Africa’s Apartheid Era, as protests around the world call for an end to minority white rule, Cobus Steyn is on patrol with his local Commando Unit near the isolated Afrikaans village where lives. His beloved wife Sannie and their young son are at the centre of his world and his news comes from Apartheid government broadcasts and alarmist gossip. Warned that terrorists will lay siege by bombing water towers, cutting phone lines, and attacking homesteads, Cobus dutifully spends his Saturdays searching for armed members of the liberation struggle, watching for movements in the bush as he clutches his assault rifle. But when a sadistic Lieutenant baits him, Cobus finds himself battered by memories of the brutality he experienced as a conscript in the South African Defence Force. And as Cobus recollects the rite of passage he endured – starved, humiliated, and berated by his military superiors – he reassesses which side of the war he is on. ‘Trigger’ is a story about how brutal regimes maintain power and the costs and possibilities of challenging that power.

Genres: Short Stories

19 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 28, 2015

About the author

Linda Mannheim is the author of three books of fiction: Risk, Above Sugar Hill, and This Way to Departures. Her short stories have appeared in magazines in the US, UK, South Africa, and Canada. Her broadcast work has appeared on BBC Witness and KCRW Berlin. She is also the cohost of Why Why Why: The Books Podcast.

Linda has been an exchange fellow at Kunstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, a journalism intern in Nicaragua during the Contra War, and wrote her first novel while she was a visiting associate at the University of Cape Town's Centre for African Studies. She’s been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an Authors’ Foundation Grant, and an Arts Council England grant.

For many years, Linda worked with NGOs and community organisations to develop and fund new projects. She recently launched Barbed Wire Fever, a project that explores what it means to be a refugee through writing and literature.

Originally from New York, Linda divides her time between London and Berlin.

Reviews

[Steve Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably well written short story about a gentle young man who is brutalized during his basic training in the South African army during Apartheid, his service in battle, and the scars it leaves him with.

[Ashlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook. It was interesting. A little silly at times, a little funny, and hard to understand when things were taking place (past, present, future).