Archive for the ‘South Africa’ Category
by Carolyn on May 18th, 2013
Alert! The 2013 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award shortlist has been announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival. A longlist of 42 titles has been whittled down to five. In no particular order:
Have a look at last year’s shortlist, from which Hugh Lewin’s book emerged the winner, Stones Against the Mirror.
The winner of the 2013 edition of the R75 000 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award will be announced at a ceremony on 30 June. Best of luck to the shortlisted authors!
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by Carolyn on May 18th, 2013
Alert! The Sunday Times Fiction Prize shortlist has been announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival. This year’s judges have selected five novels from an initial longlist of 31.
In no particular order, the shortlist comprises:
Have a look at last year’s shortlist; Michiel Heyns won the prize for Lost Ground.
The winner of the R75 000 this year’s Sunday Times Fiction Prize will be announced at a ceremony on 30 June. Best of luck to the shortlisted authors!
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by Carolyn on May 16th, 2013
A contingent of South African authors will be taking part in Etonnants Voyageurs in France from 18 -20 May this year – a continuation of the partnership with the Open Book festival, which saw ten French speaking authors participating in the Cape Town fest last year.
Representing SA lit in Saint-Malo this week will be Mark Behr, Kevin Bloom, André Brink, Damon Galgut, Michiel Heyns, Kopano Matlwa, Deon Meyer, Niq Mhlongo, Kgebetli Moele, Mike Nicol and Richard Poplak.
Other African writers taking part in Etonnants Voyageurs this year include Uwem Akpan, Sefi Atta, Teju Cole, Alain Mabanckou and Noo Saro-Wiwa.
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Press release
A significant number of South African authors will be boarding planes later this week to participate in Etonnants Voyageurs. Some of you may remember the exciting partnership we forged with the French Festival in 2012, which saw 10 French speaking authors join us for Open Book last year…we are delighted that the partnership continues and that they will be welcoming the same number of South Africans at their festival!
Authors who will be travelling are – in alphabetical order – Mark Behr, Kevin Bloom, André Brink, Damon Galgut, Michiel Heyns, Kopano Matlwa, Deon Meyer, Niq Mhlongo, Kgebetli Moele and Mike Nicol.
We are expecting the 3 day festival to do much to raise awareness about the talented writing happening in South Africa! Expect a report back soon.
Regards
The Open Book Team
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Spilt Milk
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by Maggie Marx on May 16th, 2013
Die internasionale Dansende Digtersfees het verlede naweek by die Spier-wynlandgoed buite Stellenbosch plaasgevind. Dié fees, met Breyten Breytenbach as kurator, het ten doel gehad om 11 internasionale digters saam te roep tot gesprekke oor die digkuns.
Bibi Slippers skryf in Beeld van haar ervaring by die fees. Sy berig dat Breytenbach in sy kuratorswoord gesê het dat die fees ’n “dans” is omdat “die beswerende beweging van poësie vooropgestel word, omdat om te dig ’n dans met die onnoembare is”. Daar was ook ’n troep professionele dansers by die fees te sien om dié tema verder te dra.
Die eerste internasionale Dansende Digtersfees is die afgelope naweek op die Spier-wynlandgoed buite Stellenbosch aangebied.
“Dis ’n dans,” het Breyten Breytenbach in sy kuratorswoord gesê, “omdat die beswerende beweging van poësie vooropgestel word, omdat om te dig ’n dans met die onnoembare is.”
Die teenwoordigheid van ’n troep professionele dansers, die dans van duisende wit vlaggies in die wind en die jolige gedans waarmee die fees afgesluit is, het egter die “dans” ook op ’n letterlike vlak die kern van die fees gemaak.
Slippers het ook tydens die fees die geleentheid gekry om met Breytenbach self ’n digtersdans uit te voer.
Gerdus Senekal en Chrizane van Zyl het namens LitNet dié fees bygewoon. Volgens hul verslag het die feesnaweek bestaan uit verskeie begeleide gesprekke “onder andere oor die vertaling van poësie en die rol ‒ of selfs verpligting ‒ van poësie om eties en betrokke te wees.” In ’n tweede verslag deur die tweetal skryf hulle meer oor die gesprek rakende etiek in poësie.
Verlede naweek is die eerste (maar hopelik nie die laaste nie) Dansende Digtersfees by die Spier-landgoed te Stellenbosch gehou. Hierdie poësiesaamtrek is deur Breyten Breytenbach gereël, met ‘n tiental erkende plaaslike en internasionale digters wat die karavaan volgemaak het.
Die naweek se kunsviering het bestaan uit verskeie gesprekke, onder andere oor die vertaling van poësie en die rol ‒ of selfs verpligting ‒ van poësie om eties en betrokke te wees, asook voorlesings deur die indrukwekkende versameling woordwerkers.
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by Maggie Marx on May 16th, 2013
Verdict: stick
J.M. Coetzee’s 12th novel, The Childhood of Jesus, is set in an unnamed country, at an unspecified time. Everyone here, we soon learn, has come from elsewhere, across oceans on ships from lands also unnamed, having shed the memory of their past lives and identities like redundant snakeskins. They are given new names on arrival; even their ages are mere estimates.
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by Maggie Marx on May 16th, 2013
Uitspraak: wortel
As daar nou een ding is wat deur die eeue heen onophoudelik aan die suidpunt van Afrika gebeur het, was dit ’n trekkery. Hetsy vrywillig op soek na groener gras óf uit bedreiging óf gedwonge vanweë groepsgebiedewetgewing – trek bly ’n sleutelmotief in ons geskiedenis.
In haar jongste roman vervleg Winnie Rust die lewe van ’n paar geslagte bruin en wit mense uit Wellington teen die agtergrond van die groter geskiedenis. Telkens speel trek, beweeglikheid, selfs onrus ’n bepalende rol – of dit nou gaan oor die mikroverhale van die betrokke families of oor die groter landsverhaal.
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by Maggie Marx on May 16th, 2013
Uitspraak: wortel
Rangeer is die sewende bundel uit die pen van Du Plessis, wie se debuut in 1984 by Perskor verskyn. (Sy debuut is dan ook die enigste van sy bundels wat by ’n hoofstroomuitgewer verskyn het.) Die digter se vorige bundel, talk show hosts & reality shows (wat in 2009 in beperkte oplaag verskyn het) is in Rangeer opgeneem en word vir die doeleindes van die resensie as deel van die bundel beskou.
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by Lindsay on May 16th, 2013
French-Congolese author Alain Mabanckou wrote his latest novel, Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty, from a child’s perspective of what it was like growing up in the 70s, because he “wanted to explain the way we were living under this Congolese regime called ‘Soviet Socialism’.”
Hadrien Diez from Africa Book Club asked Alain Mabanckou whether “politics necessarily interfere with the experience of being a child in Africa” and he replied by describing listening to the radio with his father every day, saying that he thinks perhaps African children were more aware of politics than children growing up in the Western world. This led Mabanckou to pose his own question, saying that “it raises an important question for the African novel: is it possible to talk about our lives without describing the political situation?”
Mabanckou also discussed his literary influences, his thoughts on writing about Africa as someone who doesn’t live there anymore and the problematic concept of “African literature”:
With nine novels, five collections of poems and a bunch of essays to his name, Franco-Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou is a literary phenomenon in the Francophone world. Renowned for the derisive drollery of his prose but also for his candour when talking about Africa, he has become an important voice of African literature – a subject he now teaches at UCLA. We talked to him on the occasion of the publication in English of his novel “Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty”, in which he evokes with mischievousness and emotion his childhood in Pointe-Noire, the Congolese port city on the Atlantic coast. In this interview with Africa Book Club, Alain Mabanckou speaks about African identity, his eclectic influences and why it is difficult to define an “African literature”.
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by Maggie Marx on May 16th, 2013
Verdict: carrots
Anyone with a kitchen garden will know how fantastic it feels to cook with your very own organic veggies, herbs and fruits. It’s healthy, tastes a hundred times better than shop-bought varieties, saves money and once you’ve tried it, there’ll be no going back.
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by Carolyn on May 15th, 2013
Alert! The shortlist for the Thirteenth Caine Prize for African Writing has just been announced.
This year’s list is devoid of South African entries but includes an unprecedented four Nigerian writers and one from Sierra Leone. It would seem that Rotimi Babatunde, last year’s Nigerian winner, has spurred on his compatriots.
The winner of this year’s £10,000 prize will be announced on 8 July at Bodleian Library, Oxford.
BOOK LIVE sends its congratulations to the shortlistees, as follows:
- Elnathan John (Nigeria) “Bayan Layi” from Per Contra, Issue 25 (USA, 2012)
- Tope Folarin (Nigeria) “Miracle” from Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012)
- Pede Hollist (Sierra Leone) “Foreign Aid” from Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 23.3 (Philadelphia, 2012)
- Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria) “The Whispering Trees” from The Whispering Trees, published by Parrésia Publishers (Lagos, 2012)
- Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria) “America” from Granta, Issue 118 (London, 2012)
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Press release
The shortlist for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced today (Wednesday 15 May) – and among the five stories chosen are an unprecedented four Nigerian entries.
The Chair of judges, art historian and broadcaster, Gus Casely-Hayford said, “The shortlist was selected from 96 entries from 16 African countries. They are all outstanding African stories that were drawn from an extraordinary body of high quality submissions.”
Gus described the shortlist saying, “The five contrasting titles interrogate aspects of things that we might feel we know of Africa – violence, religion, corruption, family, community – but these are subjects that are deconstructed and beautifully remade. These are challenging, arresting, provocative stories of a continent and its descendants captured at a time of burgeoning change.”
The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 8 July.
The 2013 shortlist comprises:
- Elnathan John (Nigeria) ‘Bayan Layi’ from Per Contra, Issue 25 (USA, 2012) www.percontra.net
- Tope Folarin (Nigeria) ‘Miracle’ from Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012) http://dubois.fas.harvard.edu/transition-magazine
- Pede Hollist (Sierra Leone) ‘Foreign Aid’ from Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 23.3 (Philadelphia, 2012) http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wphs20#.UZOV4bVlk_g
- Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria) ‘The Whispering Trees’ from The Whispering Trees, published by Parrésia Publishers (Lagos, 2012) http://www.parresiapublishers.com/
- Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria) ‘America’ from Granta, Issue 118 (London, 2012) www.granta.com
As always the stories will be available to read online on our website www.caineprize.com and will be published with the 2013 workshop stories in our forthcoming anthology A Memory This Size in July 2013 by New Internationalist and seven co-publishers in Africa.
Alongside Gus on the panel of judges this year are award-winning Nigerian-born artist, Sokari Douglas Camp; author, columnist and Lord Northcliffe Emeritus Professor at UCL, John Sutherland; Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, Nathan Hensley and the winner of the Caine Prize in its inaugural year, Leila Aboulela. Once again, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The award will cover all travel and living expenses. The winner will also be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2013.
Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian writer Rotimi Babatunde. He has subsequently co-authored a play Feast for the Young Vic and the Royal Court theatres in London.
Dates for the Diary
This year the shortlisted writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Over-Seas League on Thursday, 4 July at 7pm and at the Southbank Centre, on Sunday, 7 July at 6.30pm. On Friday, 5 July at 2-5pm and Saturday, 6 July at 5pm the shortlisted writers will also take part in the Africa Writes Festival at The British Library, organised by ASAUK and the Royal African Society.
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