Mark Verbaan
The Memoirs of Ben Trovato
We’re all familiar with the hilarious satirist, Ben Trovato. We’ve giggled at his columns, chortled at his cheeky letters to the rich and powerful and guffawed over passages in his books. But who is the man underneath the fedora and the trench coat, who is the person behind the (spoiler alert!) pseudonym?
His real name is Mark Verbaan and for years he’s carefully concealed his true identity. But now, he’s revealed both his name and himself in a tell-all novel: Incognito: The Memoirs of Ben Trovato. And like any other of Ben’s – um, I mean Mark’s, works – this one will make you cry with laughter.
Mark grew up in Durban, he dabbled in drugs, he played in a band, he went to the army (and came back with a broken arm that was not the result of any kind of valiance) and somewhere along the line he became a journalist and Ben Trovato. He tells his story of joy, suffering, love and loss with his usual sprinkling of humour, wit and sarcasm and with a generous helping of hilarious self-deprecation.
If you loved his columns and you rushed out to buy his previous books, Mark Verbaan’s latest (and possibly greatest) offering is a must-have. If you don’t buy it for it’s comical value, buy it to find out who the man you’ve been laughing with since the ’90s really is.
