Archive for the ‘News’ Category
by Sophy on Jan 27th, 2012
“Arab Spring”, “Egyptian Revolution” and “Tahrir Square” are terms that we have come to associate firmly with the events of the past year, the inciting incidence being the toppling of Tunisian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, on 14 January 2011. Yet, these terms have not been vanquished from our global consciousness, and neither have the events they signify been resolved.
In the following piece in the Mail & Guardian, eight writers – including Egypt’s Laila Lalami – reflect on the Arab Spring, one year on:
Laila Lalami
What I will always treasure about 2011 is the taste of freedom. Having grown up in a dictatorship, I relished the sight of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali squirming in his seat last January, clearly at a loss for words, unsure what he should do to stem the tide of change in Tunisia.
I knew right away that the Tunisian revolution would inspire democracy activists in North Africa and the Middle East.
In my country, Morocco, it led to the birth of the February 20 Movement, a coalition of young activists of diverse and even divergent political convictions, but who share the same goal: turning Morocco into a parliamentary monarchy, where the king reigns but does not govern. Almost immediately, the regime pushed back against the movement by calling its members atheists, separatists, Islamists, agents provocateurs funded by the West and other sobriquets designed to isolate them from the mainstream.
The Mail & Guardian piece is accompanied by a slideshow which documents the Egyptian revolution:
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by Carolyn on Jan 26th, 2012
Yesterday saw super sleuth Piet Byleveld become – in a rather dramatic turn of events – the target of murder convicted Donovan Moodley’s application for a retrial.
Moodley, convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Leigh Matthews in 2005, is now claiming that he was tortured by Detective Byleveld and forced to confess. He further claims that he told Byleveld the kidnapping was orchestrated by three drug dealers – Frank, Allie and Jemba – but that the detective forced him to say that he carried it out alone.
However, Byleveld has always maintained his belief that Moodley had help, at least, in moving the body (as he explains in this podcast) although, according to Byleveld, Moodley refused to reveal his accomplice(s).
The Leigh Matthews case features in Hanlie Retief’s best-selling biography, Byleveld: Dossier of a serial sleuth.
Convicted murderer Donovan Moodley argued in the High Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday to be retried for the 2004 kidnap and murder of university student Leigh Matthews.
He was applying for a retrial — something without precedent in South African law — because he wanted to tell “this version of the truth, which I maintain to be the truth”, he told the court.
He also elected to represent himself.
Mandy Wiener, author of the highly acclaimed book, Killing Kebble, tweeted from the retrial, which continued in the Johannesburg High Court today.
In one tweet, Wiener speculated whether Moodley had been reading Antony Altbeker’s Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, after Moodley repeatedly referred to the “Poisoned Tree” planted by Byleveld and Van Zyl.
Here are a selection of her tweets:
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by Carolyn on Jan 26th, 2012
Being a “geek” is now “chic” thanks to people like Lauren Beukes, Leadership magazine says. Zaid Kriel writes that Beukes has inspired a boom in sci-fi, fantasy and horror books in South Africa, mentioning work by Joan de la Haye, Craig Smith, Andrew Salomon and Lily Herne.
Beukes spoke to Kriel about the development of her writing career, which began when she was still in Standard Five. Beukes honed her writing skills as a freelance journalist and moved into fiction when she started working in TV animation. Her career gathered momentum with the publication of her first novel, Moxyland, and started soaring when she won the Arthur C Clarke Award for Zoo City. Lately she has received so many offers, that she has to say no to some projects in order to focus on her next novel, The Shining Girls:
Do not be fooled by her blonde hair, blue eyes and ability to throw together a decent outfit. Lauren Beukes is a Geek. Yes, with a capital “G”. A few years ago, that would have been considered an insult but, today, thanks to people such as 30 Rock’s Tiny Fey, comedians Patton Oswalt and Dara Ó Briain and movie star Vin Diesel, being geek is quite chic.
Beukes is part of a wave of 30-somethings who grew up in the 1980s – a decade technologically backward enough that classic books by the likes of Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter and AA Milne were still considered standard kids’ entertainment, yet futurist enough that children were watching DuckTales and Wielie Walie on television, and playing Super Mario and Final Fantasy on their Nintendo’s.
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by Chiara on Jan 26th, 2012
Alert! The infamous Exclusive Books Summer Sale begins tomorrow, Friday 27 January, with a wide selection of titles on sale at fantastically low prices. With an average retail price of R51, and Fanatics members receiving 10% off their sale purchases, this is definitely one sale you don’t want to miss.
What better way is there to spend the first paycheck of 2012?
Press release:
Summer brings with it the holidays, the seaside, family fun, picnic baskets of delicious food on glorious sunny days, and of course, the Exclusive Books’ Summer Sale which starts nationwide on Friday 27th January. It’s the perfect opportunity to snap up books that you have always wanted and choose your favourite read to unwind with.
Exclusive Books’ Fanatics members will get 10% off their sale purchases during the weekend of the 27th to 29th of January, while everyone is entitled to the incredible deal in which you buy nine books and get the 10th free – a few extra incentives to get down to one of South Africa’s most popular seasonal sales. The Summer Sale sees a vast range of books from every genre on offer at reduced prices, which means that you can choose your preferred read for a fraction of its original cost. To paint a picture of the enormous amount of books on sale, there are 5 555 boxes weighing a total of 155 556 kilograms that will be unpacked for your pleasure, with an average retail price of R51.00.
The hundreds of titles on sale – a glorious mix of fiction and non-fiction – mean that there is something bound to appeal to everyone. Oyster Catchers by Susan Fletcher tells the story of a relationship between two sisters, sixteen-year-old Amy whom we meet while she lies in a coma. A more serious title that will appeal to the mature taste is Nobel: A Century of Prize Winners selected & edited by Michael Worek, the story of the winners of the world’s most prestigious prize that provides us with a glimpse into the 200 most famous and most interesting Nobel winners.
Wish You Weren’t Here! is an anthology of some of the best writing on the worst of travel. Edited by Cecil Kuhne, an experienced travel writer and editor of On the Edge and The Armchair Paddler, Wish You Weren’t Here! is a delightful book, a side-splitting read that will remind you why it’s good to be home.
Looking for the perfect gift for your favourite little person – Who Stole My House? by Barbara Veit & Anna Laura Cantone, is just the thing. With the trend towards all things organic, The Essential Natural Health Bible: The Complete Home Guide To Herbs & Oils, Natural Remedies & Nutrition by Nerys Purchon could be the ideal gift for those interested in natural health and radiance.
That is just a taste of what is on offer at the Exclusive Books Summer Sale. For more information, pop in at your nearest Exclusive Books store.
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- The Essential Natural Health Bible: The Complete Home Guide To Herbs & Oils, Natural Remedies & Nutrition by Nerys Purchon
EAN: 9781921209666
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by Chiara on Jan 25th, 2012
Science fiction and horror journal, Something Wicked, recently conducted an interview with two new voices in the local speculative fiction scene: Charlie Human and Sam Wilson.
Both Wilson and Human have contributed stories to the sci-fi anthology, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse and are closely connected to Lauren Beukes – Human’s short story “Land of the Blind” was published at the end of Zoo City and he and Wilson each contributed a chapter to the award-winning book.
Human and Wilson spoke to Joe Vaz, editor of Something Wicked, about their upcoming literary projects:
I often wish I could bring the readers of Something Wicked along with me to the interviews I do. They are always a lot more fun and interesting than comes across on the page, mostly because for the written interview I have to edit all the tangents out for brevity. Sam Wilson and Charlie Human were no exception.
Sam and Charlie are extremely funny guys. We sat and talked and giggled like fools for an hour, about their books and philosophy and writing and (as so often is the case when you interview any writer in Cape Town), Lauren Beukes.
One thing that struck me about Charlie and Sam is how much more intelligent than I they are. If you were to hear the recording of the interview you might occasionally notice the few seconds of silence signifying my brain scrabbling to understand what the hell they just said.
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by Sophy on Jan 25th, 2012
Ever since the erection of The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town’s CBD, there has been no question as to where the next play by the man himself should be staged. True to form, last night saw the opening of a new production of Fugard’s controversial Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act at the theatre’s Studio venue. It is the first time the play has been staged professionally in 40 years.
Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act continues until 11 February 2012:
On a recent visit to Cape Town Mr. Fugard attended a performance of Statements at the invitation of the Theatre Arts Admin Collective which staged a short, non-commercial preview run. Mr. Fugard was so deeply moved by the performance of his work that he saw it twice and appealed for the play to be given a professional run in Cape Town. Fugard founding producer Eric Abraham offered to underwrite the production and make the Fugard Studio available this month.
Set in apartheid South Africa, where relationships across the colour bar were a criminal offence, two lovers – a black man and white woman meet secretly in the library where the woman works to make love and share their hopes and fears. An observant neighbour reports them to the police who secretly photographs them from the informant’s backyard and eventually break in and arrest the couple under the then inhuman and universally pilloried Immorality Act.
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by Chiara on Jan 24th, 2012
Richard Poplak, author of The Sheik’s Batmobile and Ja, No Man, says that Mark Foster’s latest film, Machine Gun Preacher, is the worst film of 2012. This revelation is by no means shocking; if just one of the film posters is anything to go by, it’s unlikely that the narrative will contain any traces of moral subtlety.
Writing in the Daily Maverick, Poplak says that the film is essentially a “badly shot action film” when it could have been “a fascinating moral study”. The film is based on the real Sam Childers and his memoir, Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan, a man whom Poplak describes as a “massively complicated figure”. Briefly put, Sam Childers is a man from Philidelphia who gave up his thuggish lifestyle to become a preacher and fighter in southern Sudan and Uganda, where he continues to battle the forces of the Christian militia group, the Lord’s Resistance Army. His motto? “Save the children”.
In what seems like an attempt to flood the movie market with films about himself, the “machine gun preacher” is also the focus of the made-for-Cannes documentary of the same name. Childers’ website also advertises another, separate, documentary, this time under the humble description of “reality series”. This begs the question, is Childers doing it for The Children or The Big Screen?
Watch the trailer:
Referring to Childers’ fight against LRA soldiers led by “self-styled messiah” Joseph Kony, Poplak says that Foster and his screenwriter have failed to see the similarities between Kony and Childers, both of whom have “an open line with the Almighty”.
According to Poplak, this isn’t the first time that the character Joseph Kony has “played the foil for Westerners”. He cites Jane Bussman (“Sarah Silverman in khaki”) who writes about LRA brutality in her book, The Worst Date Ever: War Crimes, Hollywood Heart-throbs and other Abominations – a book in which she describes refugee camps as “more depressing than the time she found her boyfriend ‘wanking and crying at the same time’”.
Speculating as to why Foster didn’t complicate his narrative, Poplak says that he, like most Westerners, simply can’t conceive of a complicated Africa. Machine Gun Preacher is currently showing at a cinema near you.
Africa is a continent of almost a billion people, most of whom are waiting to be saved. This axiom fuels Machine Gun Preacher, a new film directed by a Hollywood-by-way-of-Basel hack named Marc Forster. Forster’s movies tend to coagulate into a mulch of overblown action and Euro pretension, and those are just the good parts. Unjustly praised for the Halle Berry Oscar-baiter Monster’s Ball (he fetishizes the American lower class once again in his latest), he was properly pilloried for the Kite Runner and the unwatchable Bond sequel Quantum of Solace. By comparison, his latest makes the rest of his oeuvre look like Stanley Kubrick’s.
Machine Gun Preacher, a terrible film by almost any standard, qualifies as a disappointment only because there is a story worth telling among all the bwana worship, poorly acted fulminations and shaky-cam shoot-‘em-ups. Gerard Butler, who should get his SAG card revoked for his Philly accent alone, plays the real life Sam Childers, a thug-turned-preacher who found God, and then redemption, in southern Sudan and Uganda. His ex-stripper wife (played by Michelle Monaghan, who looks more like a middle-period Michael Jackson everyday) turns him on to Jesus, and he finds his purpose in a heavily armed squabble with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a messianic Christian militia that is less rebel force than murderous scourge.
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by Sophy on Jan 24th, 2012
By Andrew Donaldson for The Times:
Short, sharp guidance and observations from a journalist with attitude.
IF YOU READ ONE BOOK THIS WEEK
Slash and Burn by Colin Cotterill (Quercus Publishing), R250.
This is the eighth book in Cotterill’s Dr Siri series. The elderly state coroner sets off on a darkly comic adventure as he travels with a joint Laotian-US expedition in search of a missing US airman. Much mischief from a motley assortment of Marxists, CIA spooks, drunk and corrupt politicians, and the odd jungle spirit. Good fun.
THE ISSUE
The news that the Boekehuis, a Melville landmark and one of Johannesburg’s better book stores, is to close comes as a sad blow. It is a terrible loss, another victim of what has been referred to as “the country’s poor reading culture”. Boekehuis manager Corina van der Spoel has remarked on the nature of consumerism and the culture of shopping malls and much else besides.
But I wonder if the Boekehuis had been perhaps better sited, it would still be with us. It’s all very well being in a cosy house with a stoep where you can have coffee and cake, but if that house is hidden from passing traffic, stuck on the Media 24 parking lot, well, don’t blame us if we didn’t drop by more often.
Now, Cape Town’s Book Lounge, on the other hand, is conveniently opposite the Kimberley Hotel bar. Browsing is such thirsty work. Location, location.
CRASH COURSE
First there were the Chinese-American tiger mommies. Now their Gallic counterparts are here. A new book by an American journalist, Pamela Druckerman, French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets From Paris (Doubleday), has been receiving good reviews for (a) being funny and (b) smart as well.
It would seem French kids are the berries. They’re well-behaved, they sleep through the night at two months, they sit nicely in restaurants, they don’t whine or interrupt, they read Sartre from an early age, and so on. How come?
Druckerman suggests it starts with the birth. The French don’t do the hysteria that Anglophones bring to the party. As she notes: “We typically demonstrate our commitment by worrying, and by showing how much we’re willing to sacrifice, even when pregnant. French women signal their commitment by projecting calm and flaunting the fact that they have not renounced pleasure.”
Writing in the London Sunday Times, India Knight said: “Druckerman’s book is a desperately needed corrective to received wisdom about child-rearing and what having children is supposed to do to a woman’s sense of self. I loved it. It made me want to move to Paris.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
“He had a lot of talent but also a lot of luck. Let’s not make a Michelangelo out of him!” – Hergé, Son of Tintin by Benoît Peeters, translated by Tina A Kover (The Johns Hopkins University Press).
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by Sophy on Jan 24th, 2012
By Julia Beffon for The Times:
The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (Orion, R205)
This is the second thriller starring Malcolm Fox and his team from Internal Affairs (or Complaints, as their fellow officers call them), and again an investigation into police misbehaviour turns into a much bigger case.
Most of the action takes place in Fife, where Fox finds links to the 1985 death of a political activist. As usual, Rankin ties his story very much to the history of Scotland, and the plot is intricately woven and finely written.
But Fox is a rather pale shadow of Rebus, Rankin’s other great detective, and instead of a moody introspective, we have a miserable sod.
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by Sophy on Jan 24th, 2012
Towards the end of last year we announced the opening of submissions for the 2013 Maskew Miller Longman Youth Literature Awards. Now, we are delighted to be able to bring you news of the MML workshops, held annually to coincide with the competition as a means of guiding new and experienced writers in the genre of youth literature.
This year’s workshops will be conducted by Dr Cecilia du Toit, of University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Education, and held on various date throughout February. For details of the workshops, see the press release below.
As far as the actual awards are concerned, the closing date for submissions is 30 April 2012. To submit your original, unpublished youth novel in any of the 11 official South African languages, download the entry form from Maskew Miller Longman’s homepage.
Last year’s winners include Jayne Bauling for Stepping Solo and Books LIVE member Maya Fowler for Om op eiers te dans.
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Press release:
Are you a new writer in need of guidance & inspiration or an experienced author seeking tips on how to write a youth novel?
Maskew Miller Longman have invited Dr Cecilia du Toit to conduct youth novel workshops to inspire the entrants of the 2013 competition. Cecilia has lectured in Children’s Literature in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria.
Dates of the workshops are as follows:
Durban: 15 Feb 2012 | Cape Town: 16 Feb 2012 | Polokwane: 21 Feb 2012 | Midrand: 22 Feb 2012
If you would like to attend please send a one-page motivational letter, indicating which workshop you would like to go to, to Natasha Phillips: at fax 021 531 0716 or e-mail: Natasha.Phillips@mml.co.za.
2013 MASKEW MILLER LONGMAN LITERATURE AWARDS – GENRE: NOVELS
Maskew Miller Longman invites you to submit your unpublished and original novel/s.
Entries will be judged by prominent literary figures in each of our 11 official languages.
Closing date: 30 April 2012 | Download entry form: 2013 MML Literature Awards Entry Form
CRITERION FOR THE NOVEL COMPETITION
- Entries are only invited for NOVELS.
- The writing should appeal to South African youth (16 to 18) of today and should be suitable for prescription at school level.
- The length of the manuscript submitted should be between 30 000 and 75 000 words.
- An official entry form MUST accompany all entries.
- Established and new writers may submit original manuscripts in any of the eleven South African official languages.
- The work submitted should be original, unpublished and untranslated from any published material
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