LITERARY AGENCY
BUENOS AIRES · JOHANNESBURG
Mia Arderne
Mia Arderne is the author of Mermaid Fillet published by Kwela, NB Publishers in 2020. The debut novel was long-listed for the Sunday Times-CNA Literary Awards. Mia is a Cape-Town based writer with bylines in the Mail & Guardian, New Frame, Africa is a Country and VISI Magazine among others. Her essay 1000 Nights in Silence on love and depression features in the anthology Touch: Sex, Sexuality and Sensuality published in 2021 by Kwela. This year she published several children’s short stories with Penguin Random House in the anthologies Die Skool vir Rampsoedige Talente and The Vegan Vampire and Other Fantastic Fiction suitable for the classroom. In recent years, Mia has participated in national and international literature residencies, fairs and festivals. Among them, the residency at Can Serrat (Spain, 2012), Jakes Gerwel Foundation Writer’s Residency/PEN South Africa (South Africa, 2022), Fanschhoek Literary Festival (South Africa, 2022), Open Book Festival (South Africa, 2020-2021) and the South African Book Fair (South Africa, 2020). Mermaid Fillet has not been translated into other languages yet.

Books

Mermaid Fillet (2020)

Book Cover 2 (1) (1)

A menstrual blood storm is forecast. In a Cape Town you know and don’t know, mermaids’ tails are fileted and sold for up to four thousand rand a kilogram. This story is about a Malnaai, a Tief, a Sturvy Kindt, a Grootman, a Genuine Ou, and a mysterious figure known as M16inyourbek. One non-binary Bang Gat born in Nike Jordans is instructed by three very dangerous men to find the corpse of a Tamagotchi. The Tamagotchi was last seen was in the clutches of eight-year-old Kaylin Arendse, when she, her father, and mother were murdered. The Tamagotchi’s serial number holds to the code to Ma’s safe, a safe that has been locked to her for over twenty years. Ma, a churchgoing woman is the head of the crime dynasty, ruling a network of millions in stolen guns, drugs, and the trade of the highly coveted mermaid filet. But Cape Town’s top cops and prosecutors are after her, and she needs access to that safe, or she’ll lose everything. The Bang gat eventually tracks the Tamagotchi down to a tow-truck driver who was on the scene twenty years ago, but not before the Malnaai decays in alcoholism, the Grootman commits suicide, the Sturvy kindt is sexually assaulted and we learn of the Tief’s childhood abuse. Upon receiving the tamagotchi, Ma unlocks her fortune just before a police raid. She puts petrol in the water pipes of a courthouse and burns it to the ground, covering her tracks. It’s about lovebites that cover us in red when we need healing. It’s about the fillet we crave when we’re dying to transcend a class. It’s about the depression that seals our legs together. There’s a Goddess who casts menstrual blood storms to rain down on abusers. There’s a silence that can splice your bek closed. And a gangster who shoots the sun dead.

Press

Mermaid meat in Cape Town – Q&A with magical realism author Mia Arderne Ling Shepherd, The Daily Vox, 2020
‘Mermaid Fillet’ – the noir crime novel that will spice up your book shelf Christa Dee, Bubblegum Club, 2020
BOOK BITES | Mia Arderne, Arlan Hamilton, Susie Steiner Sunday Times Books, Sunday Times, 2020
TV interview, Morning Live SABC, 2020
Q&A with author Mia Arderne: ‘A prayer for the jol not to end Kwanele Sosibo, Mail & Guardian, November 2020
Rof, astrant, gewelddadig en morsig Nadine Petrick, Netwerk 24, November 2020.
Book Review | Mermaid Fillet is rooted in memory Kathleen Eberson, New Frame , December 2020
The Reading List’s Guide to the Less Obvious (But Still Essential) Books of 2020 The Reading List, Daily Maverick, December 2021
Best Books of 2020 Mila De Villiers, Sunday Times, January 2021
Misdaadroman ruk jou tot in jou fondamente Marita van der Vyver, Netwerk24, February 2021
A slice of Mermaid Fillet Caryn Welby-Solomon, ASA Mag, March 2021
Sunday Times CNA Literary Awards 2021 longlists Jennifer Platt, Sunday Times, April 2021