About The Damned by Michael Matthews
The story follows a young man grappling with the injustices of a racist world. His journey to manhood as an artist is conscripted into a racial war, leading him to search for his identity in a world gone mad. Throughout his quest, he is placed in compromising positions that test his character and shatter his beliefs. In his pursuit of truth, he encounters hateful, ignorant, and racist individuals who obstruct his path. However, through unexpected encounters, he discovers truth and enlightenment.
The protagonist, Painter, is involved in several events that create a literary collage of unexpected intellectual connections, questioning the variables of truth and fact. The reader is challenged to take a stance and confront the role of chance in everyday life. In a soul-reaching climax, Painter finds release in flight. Although fictional, the events of this story take place in the 1980s in South Africa and South-West Africa during the time of Apartheid.
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Author Bio:
Michael Matthews is a South African artist, editor, and writer who calls Johannesburg home – a city that hums with contradictions, creativity, and the kind of energy that makes you want to paint, write, or at least stare at a blank canvas. A master artist with a penchant for the unconventional, he spent years championing avant-garde art as the editor of Saartjie, South Africa’s first monthly ezine dedicated to pushing boundaries and asking questions like, “But why does art have to make sense?” When he is not wielding a paintbrush or debating the merits of semicolons, Michael crafts and edits school yearbooks – because every teenager deserves to have their hair mishap immortalised in print – and pen essays on creativity, art, and the occasional rant about AI. This is his third novel. It is a blending of his love for surrealism, dark humor, and the absurd, Michael invites readers into worlds where the ridiculous meets Sapiens in a freakish world.