Trompoppie filmmaker Etienne Fourie writes “monstrously entertaining” first children’s book

By CityLife Arts Writer

Twelve-year-old Patrick Newberry lives for gaming. That becomes a serious problem when he develops a sudden, peculiar allergy to electricity.
 
 Every sneeze makes electronics explode. One encounter with the neighbour’s cat knocks out the whole neighbourhood’s Wi-Fi for a week.
 
 That’s the setup of InterVille, the first children’s novel from Trompoppie filmmaker and Man in die Maan author Etienne Fourie.
 
 Patrick’s allergy is borrowed from Fourie’s own life. “I had terrible allergies and hay fever as a child, and I still do,” says Fourie. “If I so much as think about a cat, I’m likely to sneeze. My sneezes were also incredibly loud, which made me terribly self-conscious because other children would tease me about them.”

 
 In InterVille, he flips that. “I wanted to take something a child might find embarrassing or regard as a weakness and turn it into something extraordinary,” he says. “Patrick’s allergy causes endless chaos, but it also has the potential to become a kind of superpower. Many of the qualities we feel most self-conscious about when we’re young can eventually become assets. Not necessarily because they change, but because we learn to see and use them differently.”
 
 Published by Penguin Random House South Africa as the first in a planned five-book series, InterVille is aimed at 9- to 12-year-olds but already has grown-up fans too.
 
 Children’s author Jaco Jacobs calls the book “monstrously entertaining”, adding: “I loved every page.”
 
 Helena Spring, producer of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and the Oscar-nominated Yesterday, says, “It’s an outrageously original story. It sweeps you into an adventure so full of heart, wicked humour and delicious scares that you can’t help but fall in love with it.”
 
 Julia Ruchman hails it as “Funny. Fearless. Fantastically freaky.” And that’s from someone whose credits include The Walking Dead and Goosebumps.

CITYLIFE/ARTS: Why was it important to set InterVille in South Africa?

 Etienne Fourie: Growing up, the magical worlds I loved always seemed very far away. They were in London, New York, a European forest, another country or another planet. I rarely found South African stories that offered the particular kind of escapism I was looking for.
 
 InterVille is my attempt to scratch that lifelong itch. It is a love letter from my adult self to the younger version of me who wanted to believe that something vast, strange and magical could begin here too.
 
 InterVille is completely and proudly South African, although I can’t yet reveal exactly where in South Africa it takes place. That question forms part of one of the larger mysteries that will unfold later in the series.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS: Without giving too much away, what makes Crooked Creek Canyon Camp unlike any ordinary camp?

 Etienne Fourie: According to its brochure, Crooked Creek Canyon Camp is a place for “stubbornly unique individuals”.
 
 Patrick correctly points out that this is a fancy way of saying it is a camp for social outcasts and juvenile delinquents. It is populated by children who, for one reason or another, don’t quite fit anywhere else.
 
 Patrick first has to accept that he might be one of those children. He also wonders whether his parents sent him there to help him or simply to get rid of him, as some of the other campers’ parents or guardians seem to have done.
 
 Then he has to work out how to survive the place, because he is spectacularly unprepared for wilderness life. Of course, the camp is also hiding something far stranger than difficult hikes and mosquito bites.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS: If readers could meet only one InterVille creature in real life, who should they choose?

 Etienne Fourie: If we are using “creature” rather broadly, I would choose Wollric. He is clever, kind and great fun, and he has seen some extraordinary things. I suspect he has a great many stories to tell, so I would happily spend an afternoon listening to him, although finding a venue with a ceiling high enough might be difficult.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS: And which should they avoid at all costs?

 Etienne Fourie: Queen Kallamar. She is essentially a Real Housewife of Hell: spectacularly vain, deeply unpleasant and not someone you would want to offend. It isn’t entirely her fault, although I can’t explain why without revealing too much. Readers will discover considerably more about her in the next book, but meeting her in person would be an absolutely terrible idea.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS:InterVillemoves between humour, wonder, adventure and some genuinely frightening moments. How did you balance those different tones?

 Etienne Fourie: That mixture of tones feels true to life. Life can be funny, wonderful, adventurous and frightening, sometimes almost simultaneously.
 
 As a young reader, I loved scary books, particularly Goosebumps, but I was equally drawn to magical worlds filled with monsters, dragons and impossible creatures. That combination has always made sense to me because it reflects the stories I most enjoy.
 
 I didn’t consciously calculate how much humour or fear the book needed. I followed my instincts and wrote the kind of story I would have loved when I was younger — and, frankly, still love now.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS: Were you always a reader?

 Etienne Fourie: Yes. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of visiting our local library, where I could choose whatever I wanted. For me, there was nowhere more exciting than a room filled with stories.
 
 From the age of nine, we lived between St Francis Bay, Jeffreys Bay and Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape.
 
 There weren’t many places nearby where I could find the books, CDs, DVDs or games I wanted, so we occasionally travelled nearly a hundred kilometres to what was then Port Elizabeth.
 
 I would save my pocket money and arrive with a list of everything I hoped to find. My parents would drop me at the mall while they went about their business, then collect me five or six hours later. I would spend practically all that time browsing the bookshop and Musica. I was perfectly happy there.
 
 Reading, watching movies and playing video games were my favourite things. They gave me worlds I could escape into, places where I could see and experience impossible, wonderful things.
 
 Although I make my living telling stories across books, film and television, I am still first and foremost a reader and a viewer.
 
 CITYLIFE/ARTS: Who do you hope finds InterVille?

 Etienne Fourie: I hope InterVillefinds readers who are looking for a world they can disappear into and a series they can genuinely look forward to.
 
 It is especially for the outsiders, the misfits and the children – and adults – who sometimes feel that the adventure they are searching for doesn’t exist where they are.
 
 An enormous amount of care and joy went into creating it, and I hope they can feel that.
 
 If they close the book already excited to return, that would mean everything to me.
 
 Book info

Title:InterVille
 Author: Etienne Fourie
 Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
 Publication date: 1 October 2026
 Category: Children’s fiction