Die sterre sê tsau: /Xam-gedigte van Diä!kwain, Kweiten-ta-//ken, /A!kúnta, /Han#kass’o en //Kabbo edited by Antjie Krog
EAN: 9780795701740 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Darryl Accone says that this year’s Mail & Guardian Literary Festival, hosted in Johannesburg, will focus on questions about the city’s position as an ideological construct, as well as a physical entity. Many of the festival panels will be located around the question of Johannesburg’s history and identity – Karl von Holdt will deliver the keynote address on “The Johannesburg moment”, Ufrieda Ho and Chris van Wyk will discuss “Memories of the city” and Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz, Louis Greenberg and Tom Learmont will talk about “Science fiction and fantasy in the city”.
Accone asks, “Does the crude impress of Jo’burg’s mining-town origins condemn it to being what Charles van Onselen so evocatively dubbed a New Nineveh and New Babylon? Is it condemned forever to be a temple of Mammon? Or can the word, culture and the arts save the place?”. He describes how the Mail & Guardian Literary Festival is “mining a seam of talent” that will shed light on these questions:
Award-winning authors, poets, public intellectuals, academics and critics will be at the event. They include Cynthia Jele, author of Happiness Is a Four-Letter Word (Kwela), which won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book: Africa; former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils, author of this year’s Alan Paton Award-winning memoir, The Unlikely Secret Agent (Jacana); Lauren Beukes, whose speculative fiction, Zoo City (Jacana), took science fiction’s premier award, the Arthur C Clarke; Caine Prize-winner Henrietta Rose-Innes; poets and scholars Antjie Krog, Denis Hirson, Leon de Kock and Ingrid de Kok; commentariat luminaries Moeletsi Mbeki, Achille Mbembe, Sandile Memela and Andile Mngxitama; memoirists Hugh Lewin, Chris van Wyk, Ufrieda Ho and Mbulelo Mzamane; political and labour experts Susan Booysen, Fiona Forde and Kally Forrest; literary critic Jane Rosenthal and City Press books editor and Radio 702 host Karabo Kgoleng; and Jo’burg mavens-cum-urban specialists Gerald Garner, Noor Nieftagodien, Leslie Bank and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon.
Chairing the nine panels are specialists such as Jon Hyslop (on the discussion “Memories of the City”), Steven Sack (“Jo’burg: Renewing, Restoring, Reviewing”), Gwen Ansell (“Science Fiction and Fantasy in the City”), Craig MacKenzie (“Aspects of the South African Novel”) and Sunday Independent literary editor Maureen Isaacson (“New Writing from the City”).
The Market Theatre in Newtown will be the venue hosting this year’s M&G festival. Percy Zvomuya speaks to the theatre’s artistic director, Malcolm Purkey, about the renovations taking place there:
The Market Theatre complex is being given a makeover, a renovation, a renewal.
You could view it as “gentrification” and you might think that the Market’s artistic director, Malcolm Purkey, would be outraged. Far from it. Purkey is sanguine about the developments, excited even.
“I have no problem with animating Newtown in this way. We need restaurants, bars and music venues,” he says, as he ponders the proposed shopping mall at the back of Museum Africa. “The Market Theatre, one can only imagine, will benefit [as we are] the anchor tenant.”
Alert! The winners of the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards were announced in Cape Town at a gala function on Saturday evening.
In their 20th year, the awards count as among South Africa’s most prestigious. Worth R50 000 to the winners, they were given in four language categories – English, Afrikaans, Nguni and Sotho – and a “film” category, for a novel showing the greatest promise for translation into a visual medium.
Books maven Jenny Crwys-Williams, M-Net CEO Patricia van Rooyen and M-Net communications director Koo Govender took guests through the three-course banquet, hosted by the Table Bay Hotel at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. The current Miss South Africa, Bokang Montjane, was also in attendance, and spoke about the importance of literacy, in connection with M-Net’s Naledi initiative, which took centrestage ahead of the announcements of the winners.
Without further ado, said winners were:
English category: Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic (Umuzi)
Afrikaans category: Die benederyk by Ingrid Winterbach (Human & Rousseau)
Nguni category: Inkululeko Isentabeni by Ncedile Saule (Hibbard Publishers)
Sotho category: Lehutso by KJ Sekele (Hibbard Publishers)
The winners of the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards were announced at a glamorous event at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town on Saturday, 18 June.
In the 20th commemorative year of this prestigious South African book prize, veteran authors swept the boards in the main language categories, while a first-time novelist scooped top honours with a charming story in the competition’s fledgling film category.
The M-Net Literary Awards invites entries in all eleven official South African languages. This year, awards were presented in four different language categories: Afrikaans, English, Nguni and Sotho. The M-Net Literary Award in the film category is reserved for the novel, among all the entries in all the categories, that shows the most potential to be adapted into a commercially-viable feature film.
In the English category, one of the country’s most prominent writers, Ivan Vladislavič received the award for Double Negative. This multi-faceted novel, which was written as a counter-piece to a book of photographs depicting Johannesburg by renowned photographer DavidGoldblatt, was singled out by the judges as “a stylistic delight with which little can compare”.
Double Negative was commended for its special significance in the current age of overlapping virtual realities and deep hunger for real visual surfaces rather than imagined depth.
Afrikaans author Ingrid Winterbach completed a hat trick with her innovate latest novel Die Benederyk. She nabbed her first M-Net Literary Award, written under the pseudonym Lettie Viljoen, in 1994 for Karolina Ferreira and continued her winning streak with Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat in 2007.
Both the Sotho and Nguni category winners have been familiar faces at literary awards ceremonies over the past decade.
It was a first win at the M-Net Literary Awards for K.J. Sekele, however, who have been on previous shortlist. His arresting novel about adoption and family roles in African families, Lehutšho, was also a strong contender in the film category.
In the Nguni category, popular Xhosa novelist, Ncedile Saule added another M-Net Literary Award to his collection with Inkululeko Isentambeni. This reverting political narrative impressed with the way it explored human tragedy with inventive stylistic structures.
The much-contested film category was won by debutant Cynthia Jele, who told the audience in her acceptance speech how Happiness is a Four Letter Word had been written in response to Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. She decided to read every single novel recommended by the famous talk show host, but was so dampened by the ‘heaviness’ of so many of the stories, that she decided to write the book she, and many young women like her, would want to read.
Jele’s novel tells the story of sistas and fashionistas without shame who frequent the malls in the Northern suburbs of Johannesburg.
According to the judges, Happiness is a Four Letter Word is a novel with an abundance of riches and dialogue that will set the screen alight.
The winners in each category received R50 000 as apposed to the R30 000 from previous years. All the winning novels are available on sale at Kalahari.net and at the gala event M-Net confirmed its commitment to the South African book by announcing that it would support sales of the winning books with an extensive marketing campaign on the M-Net television channels.
The broadcaster also plans to extend the M-Net Naledi initiave which encourages a culture of reading from a young age by facilitating fun-filled reading programmes at rural and less privileged schools.
The 200 under-35s the newspaper identifies as our top up-and-comers are listed in a variety of categories, including Science & Technology and Arts & Culture.
In and amongst the faces, Books LIVE has spied the odd denizen of SA Lit. It took some gleaning, in fact: only six names of the 200 are writers (in the sense that we use here on the network). Perhaps the M&G has exhausted its choices in previous “take to lunch” editions – ? Or perhaps we just haven’t looked hard enough, and the likes of Sifiso Mzobe, Shubnum Khan, Andries Samuel, Nicole Jaekel Strauss, Thanda Mhlanga, Azad Essa and others are in fact hidden in the pull-out’s folds, and we’ve missed them.
Wiener, appropriately enough, is listed in the Media category, while Wilson can be found in Science and Technology – though, given he’s just completed his MFA at UCT (for an MS called “Comedy”, can’t wait to read it), he would be equally well-suited to Arts & Culture, where the others may be found.
If you know one or more of these fine young scribes, make a lunch date with them! You’ll very likely get something out of it beyond the grub.
In celebration of the shortest day of the year, which falls on the 21st of June, Rachel Zadok and some other collaborators are putting together a National Short Story Day. It follows in the lead of a UK-wide celebration with the same name, and is an initiative aimed at promoting fiction in its succinct form, focusing on South African writing that lends itself to this tradition.
Across the country short story events will be held “in weird and wonderful places”. The project has already received an overwhelming response from writers, publishers, media, readers and book distributors. Members of the public are invited to organise an event in their local bookshop, library, or coffee shop on the same day. If you have any ideas about setting up an event, visit the National Short Story Day South Facebook page and leave a comment. You can also visit the UK National Short Story Day website to get an idea of the events they organised.
There will also be a short story competition, based on the theme “The Edge”. The word count must be between 3000 and 7000 words, and more details will be available once the official website is up and running.
The project is also looking for funding and sponsors, and if you’re able to help or have any ideas, contact rachelzadok@cybersmart.co.za.
Already, writers and various organisations are getting involved. Lauri Kubuitsile, author of SA romance novellas Can He Be the One? and Kwaito Love, has written that The Writers Association of Botswana (WABO) is getting in on the celebrations.
Author and academic Peter Merrington also posted a comment saying that the sequel to his thematically-linked collection of short stories. Zebra Crossings, is to be launched by Jacana in May or June, so expect an event related to the launch. The sequel is titled, The Zombie and the Moon: More Tales from the Shaman’s Record.
So go ahead and “like” their Facebook page to receive more updates and share your ideas. Also, this movement sounds like it’s in dire need of a twitter hashtag. Any suggestions out there? Colleen Higgs of Modjaji Books and SA Partridge are already spreading the word in their tweets:
I’ve always been a sucker for a good romance novel.
Even though I know that they always follow the same route: boy meets girl, they fall in love, then encounter obstacles in the way of true love, they split up and pine for each other, until they defy everything and end up together and live happily ever after.
The first thing that caught my interest about the new range of love stories released by the new romance imprint Sapphire Press, is that they are written by young South Africans – most are in their 20s – and the stories are set in familiar places.
This month, Lesotho will be hosting the Ba Re E Nere Literary Festival, conceptualised and curated by Liepollo Rantekoa. The Litfest will pay homage to the authors and musicians that have been nourished and inspired by Lesotho’s culture, such as Njabulo Ndebele, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Zakes Mda, Ayi Kwei Armah, Thomas Mofolo, Polo “Malehlohonolo”, Patrick Bereng, Morabo Morojele, Mpho Brown, Bhudaza, and Mary Bosiu.
You can experience the work of these writers through the Chimurenga Library, which will be made available at the Vodacom Internet Shop in Maseru. There will also be screenings and weekly discussions taking place throughout the whole of March.
Below is a sketch of some of the festival’s events. Note that some of the scheduled dates are subject to change. Updates are available via Ba Re Literature | Facebook.
Saturday 5 March: 18h00 – 20h00
Morabo Morojele in discussion with Kgafela oa Magogodi and Lesego Rampolokeng; Satchmo
Alert! The shortlists for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize – Africa Region have been announced, and, as in years past, books from South African pens make up the bulk of them. The CWPs honour “the best of Commonwealth fiction written in English” and are given every year.
BOOK SA is particularly pleased to see members Zukiswa Wanner, Sue Rabie and Patricia Schonstein on the “best book” list. Bridget Pitt rounds out the South African contingent, Helon Habila represents for Nigeria and Aminatta Forna – who was actually born in Scotland, and is surely a frontrunner at this stage, given how well her novel has been received – flies the flag for Sierra Leone.
The “best first book” shortlist, meanwhile, comprises South Africans and Nigerians in equal measure. BOOK SA members Cynthia Jele and Alastair Bruce join Graeme Friedman on the SA side, while Chioma Okereke, Uzoma Uponi and EC Osondu forward Nigeria’s name.
The writers on each shortlist are competing for regional prizes of £1 000; whoever wins goes on to compete against writers from other Commonwealth regions for the “overall best book” and “overall best first book” prizes of £10 000 and £5 000, respectively. Last year’s Africa winners were South Africa’s Marie Heese and Nigeria’s Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
Regional winners will be announced on 3 March this year, with the overall winners named at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on 21 May. The Africa region judges are Ajoa Yeboah-Afari (Ghana – chair), Peter Simatei (Kenya) and Beulah Thumbadoo (South Africa).
African writing is getting a boost from an unexpected source – Canada! The Project on New African Literatures (PONAL), a Canadian based online resource centre, aims to make available information about African books and writers. The site will publish news about African authors, as well as photos and audio clips of authors’ readings (Listen to a reading by Gabeba Baderoon below):
Two Ottawa-based initiatives are working to make books by African authors more accessible -in Africa and in North America.
A project at Ottawa’s Carleton University intends to give books by African writers more exposure in Canada and internationally. The Project on New African Literatures (PONAL) is an online resource centre with information about African books and writers.
Pius Adesanmi, director of PONAL, is an associate professor in Carleton’s Department of English Language and Literature and is affiliated with Carleton’s Institute of African Studies. He explains that PONAL’s focus is creative writing produced since the 1980s, with emphasis on younger African writers.
Some of the authors featured on the website include Sefi Atta, Unoma Azuah, Amatoritsero Ede, Ogaga Ifowodo, and South African poet Gabeba Baderoon. Listen to a sound clip of Baberoon reading the poem “Old Photographs” from A Hundred Silences:
Verisindaba, the website promoting Afrikaans poetry, has published a selection of English translations of the poetry of Antjie Krog.
Verdict: carrot
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