Archive for the ‘Penguin’ Category
by Sophy on Apr 12th, 2012
In September this year, Penguin Books will publish There Was A Country, the brand new book by Chinua Achebe. Born in 1930, Albert Chinualumogu (Chinua) Achebe achieved renown for his debut novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, which has been translated into more than 50 languages.
Subtitled “A Personal History of Biafra”, There Was A Country centres on Achebe’s personal experience of the Nigerian Civil War, in many ways the defining event of his life. Its release, according to Newstime Africa‘s Dennis Kabatto, is “arguably the most anticipated [of] this millennium”:
There is no doubt, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe upcoming memoir There Was a Country, A Personal History of Biafra is arguably the most anticipated book launch in this millennium. There Was A Country, A Personal History of Biafra is published by Penguin and is set to be released on September 6, 2012. In this novel, Professor Achebe reckons with one of Africa’s fateful event the Nigerian-Biafran war, which began on July 6, 1967 and ended on January 1970 – an attempted secession of Nigeria’s southeastern province as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.
Penguin books synopsis describes There Was a Country as “marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age.”
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Photo courtesy The London Nigerian
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by Chiara on Oct 28th, 2011
Alexandra Fuller, author of the memoirs Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight has compiled a list of of top 10 memoirs written by Africans for the Guardian.
Fuller lists books that contain “performances of courage and honesty” by authors such as Albie Sachs (The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter), Binyavanga Wainaina (One Day I Will Write About this Place), JM Coetzee (Boyhood) and Zakes Mda (Sometimes There is a Void):
“The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty. Far from the tell-all confessionals more usual in western memoirs, the African memoir lays bare the bones of what it is to be a child, survivor, or perpetrator of oppression and conflict.
“What is often shocking, but very effective, is the humour evident in so many of these works, laughter being an essential survival technique for so many Africans (and of her writers). The act of writing is also a defiant way of asserting, “I was born. I am here. I will remain.” In places of chronic instability, the memoir is an anchor of words to an experience and place and a way to bear witness; to expose and perhaps even explain the atrocities of war, racism, tribalism and cronyism. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, and Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, my own memoirs of Africa, are written from a white African point of view, but explore the ways in which the land possesses all of us who love it – regardless of ethnicity – and the ways in which laughter can make palatable life’s unendurable losses.”
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by Chiara on Sep 1st, 2011
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.”
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Photo courtesy Hilton T
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by Chiara on Jul 18th, 2011
By Tymon Smith for The Sunday Times:
Adam Schwartzman is the author of The Good Life, The Dirty Life and Other Stories; Merrie Afrika! and Book of Stones. He is the editor of the anthology Ten South African Poets. He recently published his first novel, Eddie Signwriter.
Right now I’m reading a collection of short stories called Airships by Barry Hannah, a writer of the American South who died recently. It was published in 1978.
This book, one of his earliest, is set in the present day (or what was the present day in the 1970s) as well as during the US civil war and the Vietnam war.
It’s fantastic. Its ability to create something so vivid and rich in so few words is breathtaking. Also, I love the texture of the prose – brutal, sharp, slightly estranging in its southern US inflection.
I’d never heard of Barry Hannah before I picked this book up in a second-hand bookshop.
I’ve found some incredible books that way – Mating by Norman Rush, The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson and Rock Springs by Richard Ford. All of these are books that changed the way I thought of writing. Sometimes extraordinary things happen when you lay yourself open to chance.
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by Chiara on Jul 12th, 2011
It’s good to see that local is indeed lekker when it comes to book sales. The following list of Exclusive Books bestsellers, as based on last week’s sales, is dominated by SA lit titles. SA lit smoothly takes places 1-5 on the bestseller ladder and makes an appearance again at 8, which means that a whopping five of the top five and six of the top ten are South African books. Also notable is the strong presence of two publishing companies in particular, Pan Macmillan and Two Dogs.
And, without further ado, here’s the list:
Top 5:
1. Killing Kebble by Mandy Wiener
2. Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations by Nelson Mandela
3. Advocates for Change: How to Overcome Africa’s Challenges edited by Moeletsi Mbeki
4. 50 People Who Stuffed Up South Africa by Alexander Parker, illustrated by Zapiro
5. The Racist’s Guide to South Africa by Simon Kilpatrick
Next 5:
6. The Sixth Man by David Baldacci
7. Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult
8. The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence
9. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
10. Madeleine by Kate & Jerry McCann
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- The Elephant Whisperer: Learning About Life, Loyalty and Freedom From a Remarkable Herd of Elephants by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence
EAN: 9780330506687
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Image courtesy Mall Guide
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by Carolyn on Jul 11th, 2011
You stand the chance to win R5000 in cash by voting for the dog you believe should win the Sunday Times “Spirit of Jock” competition.
Ten dogs, who are believed to embody the courageous, tenacious spirit of the legendary canine, Jock of the Bushveld, have been selected as finalists. Now it is up to you to vote for your favourite. SMS the code for your choice, along with your full name and physical address to 41933. SMSs cost R1.50 each. Your SMS vote will be entered into a lucky draw for the cash prize.
Voting closes on Tuesday, 12 July 2011 at 10.00 PM.
View the SMS codes at Times Live:
We have been touched by very interesting stories and beautiful pictures of your ‘Jocks’.
Thanks for all your entries – they were heartwarming and they all definitely showed the spirit that we were looking for.
View the finalists:
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by Ben - Editor on May 17th, 2011
Much more than a carrot, Anthony Egan’s in-depth meditation on Zakes Mda’s Sometimes There is a Void deserves our full attention:
Depending on our age, some of us associate Zakes Mda with finely crafted novels that combine humour with social commentary; an earlier generation regard him as one of the best exponents of South African protest theatre; a few regard him as primarily an academic. He is all of the above and more — as his highly engaging memoirs demonstrate.
Unless one is caught up in the “mystique” of the writer, the subgenre of “writer’s memoir” is daunting to any reader or reviewer. At best it can be a somewhat exaggerated apologia pro vita sua — in short, the autobiography as novel. The worstcase scenario is that it is a deadly dull account of inspiration, perspiration and writer’s block punctuated in the best moments by literary prizes, bestsellerdom or — the ultimate victory — both.
Thankfully Zakes Mda’s memoir has much more to it than the latter –he has, to put it mildly, had an interesting life. And the book is marked by all the characteristics that have made his novels (and plays) justifiable literary and financial successes: a deceptively easy, almost conversational style, with wit and compassion.
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by Sophy on May 5th, 2011
Verdict: carrot
It is rare to come upon a book that screams originality but The Mall is that rare beast. Sent to me out of the blue by Corvus I picked it up over the Easter weekend not wanting anything too heavy to read – what I got was a cinematic horror novel with timely things to say about consumerism in our society.
Dan works for minimum wage in a chain bookshop in the Mall, he hates his job and his boss and lusts after one of his fellow employees. Rhonda is at the mall with a child she has agreed to mind for a few hours for her cousin, she’s there to score coke. Leaving the child in the bookshop to complete the deal she returns to find the child gone and the mall closing. Incompetent security guards compound her problems, she has two hours to find and return the kid before anyone notices he’s gone. In desperation she bullies Dan into helping her search for the child in the closed mall. As they search anonymous the corridors behind the shops mysterious text messages lure them deeper into trouble until they emerge into what they think is the mall – but isn’t!
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by Chiara on Apr 29th, 2011
For today’s Fiction Friday we have an excerpt from Measuring Time by Helon Habila, in which two young boys try to escape their village and their domineering father, but only one of the brothers is able to make the journey.
From the book’s blurb:
In the small Nigerian village of Keti live Mamo and LaMamo, twin sons of a domineering father. When one day the boys try and escape the village, only LaMamo succeeds – and in time becomes a soldier well-versed in the ways of life and death. Mamo, too sickly to leave, remains in Keti finding solace in the arms of Zara while watching impotently as his detested father grows powerful and corrupt. Unable to wield a weapon, Mamo instead reaches for a pen and soon begins to write the true history of Keti and its people – all the time awaiting the return of his beloved brother, LaMamo.
Enjoy!
They had decided a long time ago to make life hard for their father. He had broken their mother’s heart, and though the twins had not been born then, some women in the village still hum the song, popular many years ago, about Lamang’s philandering before and after he had married their mother. The song, a ballad that grew in detail and complexity with each rendition in the moonlit village square, called Lamang the ‘King of Women / Owner of ten women / In every village from / Keti to the state capital.’ The refrain described how women stood longingly on their doorsteps as he passed, and how mothers locked up their daughters at night to save them from ‘the handsome ravisher,’ and ended with the lines:
Mother sighing with longing
Daughter sighing with longing
Ah, King of Women, show some mercy
The song mentioned one woman especially by name, Saraya, the ‘black beauty.’ She was his first love, but she had married someone else, a distant cousin preferred by her family to Lamang’s penniless charms. But according to the song, and to village gossip, the relationship had not ended with her -marriage—there were trysts in neighboring villages, secret visits at night, suspicious shadows behind the compound wall. Saraya’s husband, a truck driver, died in a road accident one year after the wedding.
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Photo courtesy PW
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