Mason chaired a panel featuring Ivorian graphic novelist Marguerite Abouet (of the award-winning Aya series), cartoonists Jeremy Nell and Leonora van Staden, as well as crime writer Colin Cotterill, better known for his Dr Siri mysteries. The conclusion was that, although graphic novels receive a lot of respect overseas in places like France and Belgium, they have yet to be accorded the same literary reverence and support in places like South Africa.
Mason argued that Abouet’s Aya stories are “brilliant and inspirational” and show “what can be achieved by the (comic) form”:
The graphic novel makes its debut at this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival, and Andy Mason, for one, is delighted with the recognition by South Africa’s literary community – and believes that it has been a long time coming.
South Africa, says Mason, veteran cartoonist and the author of the Alan Paton long-listed history, What’s So Funny? Under the Skin of South African Cartooning (Double Storey), has produced some good graphic novelists. He singles out Joe Daly, a young Capetonian whose off-beat surreal tales have done well in the US and in France, where the form is revered by comic fans.
“He’s not known here at all,” Mason says, “but he is getting recognition out there. It’s pretty good stuff.” (Indeed, it is refreshing to see Daly’s characters use such Seffrican colloquialisms as “Nooit, Bro”; it must make his books that much more surreal and off-beat to American readers.)
According to Abouet, in an interview with Natalie Bosman of the Citizen, the success of Aya has to do with the universal nature of the stories, which she created with the intention of representing a side of Africa often neglected by the media. The 19-year-old Aya is not defined by Aids and famine, but rather the issues many young women face growing up in the world. Indeed, such is the universal appeal of Aya, that the series has already been translated into 15 languages and production has begun on the first Aya film, to be released sometime next year.
Writer Marguerite Abouet’s colourful character “Aya of Yopougon” might have been born out of a few scribblings that she showed to her illustrator husband Clément Oubrerie, but today Aya has travelled far beyond Africa’s borders and been translated into 15 languages, including Japanese and South Korean.
Abouet is still amazed at the success of her creation, but she’s quick to point out that in many ways Aya’s story is universal. In fact, the original inspiration behind the series was to portray a side of Africa that the media so often fails to – an Africa not defined by war, famine and Aids, but rather a beautiful place that many people are happy to call home.
Andrew Donaldson reports on the 2011 Franschhoek Literary Festival, which ended on Sunday, with the conclusion that his highlight was UFS vice-chancellor and education specialist, Jonathan Jansen, author of We Need to Talk. Donaldson also notes the lack of a “bloody good punch-up” equivalent to the Antjie Krog-Rian Malan spat that, for many, came to characterise last year’s festival.
Let’s be blunt: what the Franschhoek Literary Festival lacked this year was, figuratively speaking, a bloody good punch-up, something along the lines of the heated how’s-your-father last year between journalist Rian Malan and the poet Antjie Krog.
Their set-to, which came after Krog had criticised Malan and other whites who “sat on the sidelines” and “only complain and don’t get involved in solutions”, was definitely a highlight of the 2010 festival. It resulted in spirited discussions and heated arguments among those who attended their panel discussion.
It’s what one wants from a literary festival, especially on the eve of a national election: the frisson of objectionable but passionate behaviour. Failing which, coarse language.
Christi van der Westhuizen gee haar opinie oor die onlangse ‘rellie’ tussen Rian Malan en Antjie Krog tydens die onlangse Franschhoek Literêre Fees. Van der Westhuizen was die voorsitter van die paneel waaraan Malan deelgeneem het en Krog was in die gehoor. Volgens Christi is die debat baie meer as bloot ‘ras’.
Ons is nie almal so nie, is ek verheug om opnuut te bevestig. Anders gestel: Wit mense is nie almal dieselfde nie.
Dít ondanks die verbete pogings van sommiges om ons in dwangbuise van óf neo-Afrikaner-nasionalisme óf ’n politiek gerieflike etnisiteit te probeer vasvang.
Eersgenoemde verwys na pogings van die aspirant-politici in ons geledere en diegene wat koerante se webblaaie probeer kaap. Laasgenoemde verwys na pogings van die sosiaal-konserwatiewe elite wat tans regeer.
Alert! Johannesburg-born Adam Schwartzman has hit the big time with his debut novel, Eddie Signwriter, freshly published by the USA’s Pantheon Books. The publisher could hardly be more unstinting in its praise, saying of the first effort, “A stunning debut novel – its power and prose evocative of such diverse writers as Faulkner, Ondaatje, Nabokov, and Coetzee – about a young African’s international odyssey of self-discovery.”
The full blurb:
Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa—Eddie Signwriter to his clients—is a twenty-year-old painter of murals and billboards in the city of Accra, Ghana, who is buffeted by forces beyond his control and understanding as he is swept up by the passions and machinations of others. Struggling with a forbidden relationship, banished from school, held responsible for the death of a notable woman in the community, Eddie flees overland to Senegal and then, illegally, to France, determined to find a new life for himself among the immigrant communities of Paris.
Following him across magnificently rendered African lands into the precincts of Paris, Eddie Signwriter gives us a spellbinding tale of rootlessness and desire, of disgrace and redemption, of politics both personal and global, of art and love. Empathic, wise, deeply humane, and luminously written, it heralds Adam Schwartzman as a writer of great promise.
Schwartzman is himself set to debut as a member of the SA Lit disapora at the just-around-the-corner Franschhoek Literary Festival – he appears on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Ahead of his visit, Boston.com offers us an interview with this new literary force:
Q. Where did Eddie come from?
A. I went out looking for him. Not him at first, but the story. I knew what I wanted to write about, but not how. I knew that Ghana — a place I had been many times before — would be central in the novel. When I arrived in Accra I saw these magnificent painted signs everywhere, and I eventually bumped into the sign writer who became Eddie’s mentor in the novel. One event led to another. I’m a great believer in chance, in life, and in writing. My travels across the continent provided different parts of Eddie. Having grown up in South Africa at the end of apartheid I was throwing off the identity that apartheid had given me and entering into the experience of the continent. I was determined not to write an autobiographical first novel, but I found myself going through an internal journey similar to Eddie’s.
Q. As a white South African, were you hesitant to write about the black African experience?
A. Yes, more than I should have been. A lot of people ask me if I am an African writer, and my answer is that I am for the only reason that counts: I come from there. In my last book of poems I wrote a line that goes, “I am not a boy, I own this” and that’s pretty much how I feel. But there was a long period of anxiety and working through that issue.
Alert! Johannesburg-born Adam Schwartzman has hit the big time with his debut novel, Eddie Signwriter, freshly published by the USA’s Pantheon Books. The publisher could hardly be more unstinting in its praise, saying of the first effort, “A stunning debut novel – its power and prose evocative of such diverse writers as Faulkner, Ondaatje, Nabokov, and Coetzee – about a young African’s international odyssey of self-discovery.”
The full blurb:
Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa—Eddie Signwriter to his clients—is a twenty-year-old painter of murals and billboards in the city of Accra, Ghana, who is buffeted by forces beyond his control and understanding as he is swept up by the passions and machinations of others. Struggling with a forbidden relationship, banished from school, held responsible for the death of a notable woman in the community, Eddie flees overland to Senegal and then, illegally, to France, determined to find a new life for himself among the immigrant communities of Paris.
Following him across magnificently rendered African lands into the precincts of Paris, Eddie Signwriter gives us a spellbinding tale of rootlessness and desire, of disgrace and redemption, of politics both personal and global, of art and love. Empathic, wise, deeply humane, and luminously written, it heralds Adam Schwartzman as a writer of great promise.
Schwartzman is himself set to debut as a member of the SA Lit disapora at the just-around-the-corner Franschhoek Literary Festival – he appears on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Ahead of his visit, Boston.com offers us an interview with this new literary force:
Q. Where did Eddie come from?
A. I went out looking for him. Not him at first, but the story. I knew what I wanted to write about, but not how. I knew that Ghana — a place I had been many times before — would be central in the novel. When I arrived in Accra I saw these magnificent painted signs everywhere, and I eventually bumped into the sign writer who became Eddie’s mentor in the novel. One event led to another. I’m a great believer in chance, in life, and in writing. My travels across the continent provided different parts of Eddie. Having grown up in South Africa at the end of apartheid I was throwing off the identity that apartheid had given me and entering into the experience of the continent. I was determined not to write an autobiographical first novel, but I found myself going through an internal journey similar to Eddie’s.
Q. As a white South African, were you hesitant to write about the black African experience?
A. Yes, more than I should have been. A lot of people ask me if I am an African writer, and my answer is that I am for the only reason that counts: I come from there. In my last book of poems I wrote a line that goes, “I am not a boy, I own this” and that’s pretty much how I feel. But there was a long period of anxiety and working through that issue.
BOOK SA didn’t crack a mention (we were doubtless number 25), but a lot of our friends did!
I have utter admiration for Uchi, Petina’s brother, who can change a tire without getting grease on his hands, as you can see from number three, below. I also changed a tire during the FLF, and there’s still grease under my fingernails.
In no particular order … twenty-four highlights of an incredible week in the Western Cape
1. Meeting Jenny Crwys-Williams. Talking to her, being interviewed by her. Listening to her interviewing other writers. Her intelligent appreciation of my book. Of any book she likes. Her zeal and appetite for life, her energy and love for books. Her shimmering charisma.
2. Hearing Christopher Hope read the strangest and most bizarre story I have heard in a long time. Anytime Christopher Hope opened his mouth to say anything at all. His kindness, warmth and erudition.
3. My brother, Uchi, who was with me every step. His good humour. His fearlessness in talking to the great and the good. His pride in me. His ability to change a tire without getting stain of grease on his hand.
Alert! Karen Jayes, a freelance writer and journalism lecturer at Cape Town’s City Varsity, has won the inaugural 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award for her short story, “Where he will leave his shoes”.
The announcement was made by Shaun Johnson of SA PEN and the new publishing house Johnson and King James at the Franschhoek Literary Festival on Friday evening. Johnson was flanked by SA PEN chairman Anthony Fleisher and judging committee member Justin Fox, as well as his publishing partners Alistair King and James Barty.
Jayes’ story was picked out of 34 finalists by Nobel laureate JM Coetzee. She wins £5 000. Coetzee awarded second prize (£3 000) to Andrew Salomon, for “A visit to Dr Mamba” and declared that the third prize of £2 000 should be split between Ceridwen Dovey and Nadia Davids, for their respective stories, “Survival mechanisms” and “The visit”.
Coetzee also singled out four writers for honorable mentions: NoViolet Mkha Bulawayo, Naomi Nkealah, Isabella Morris and Irene McCartney.
All the stories of the 34 finalists have been included in New Writing from Africa 2009, the first PEN/Studzinski anthology, published by Johnson & King James as the imprint’s first book. It was unveiled along with the winners on the night.
Alert! Johannesburg-born Adam Schwartzman has hit the big time with his debut novel, 
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