by Amanda on 24 May 2013
Charlene Smith, author of Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life, joined Gareth Edwards in studio at eNCA to discuss the way in which the Mandela family have been in the news recently.
Referring to Mandela’s children being involved in court case over the family’s assets, Smith said that “The way that the Mandela family is behaving now insults his name and insults our country” and continued saying that the way we are treating him “shames us as a nation”.
Watch the full interview:
Book details
eBook options – Download now!
by Kate on 24 May 2013
Moemas and Penguin Books take pleasure in inviting you to a three course dinner with Susan Newham-Blake, author of Making Finn.
Tickets cost R250 per person and space is limited to 20 guests.
Do not miss it!
Event Details
- Date: Thursday, 6 June 2013
- Time: 7:00 PM
- Venue: Moemas,
Parktown Quarter,
Corner 7th & 3rd Avenue Parktown North,
Johannesburg | Map
- Cover charge: R250
- RSVP: moemasfood@gmail.com, 011 788 7725
Book Details
by Amanda on 23 May 2013
The Sunday Times shortlist for the Alan Paton Award and the Fiction Prize were announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival on Saturday 18th of May.
Random House Struik is pleased to announce that Killing for Profit by Julian Rademeyer and Rat Roads by Jacques Pauw were both shortlisted for the 2013 Alan Paton Award, both published under the Zebra Press imprint. Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry (published by Umuzi) has been shortlisted for the 2013 Fiction Prize.
Killing for Profit has been described as a good book on a bad subject – the tracking and poaching of rhinoceroses that is threatening to make these animals extinct. A terrifying true story of greed, corruption, depravity and ruthless criminal enterprise…
Rat Roads is a searing story of hardship and survival, and an unforgettable tale of courage and triumph. In this extraordinary book, celebrated journalist Jacques Pauw gives a human face to some of the most tumultuous events in recent African history.
In the world of Imraan Coovadia’s tragicomic novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, taxi companies thrive in a single-party state. Taxi poets are admired, sliding-door men rule, professors and politicians strut and fret and connive in a society shaped by violence and ambition, love, and the unsettling power of the imagination.
Other 2013 Alan Paton shortlisted titles include: Biko: A Biography by Xolela Mangcu, The Last Afrikaner Leaders by Hermann Giliomee and Endings and Beginnings by Redi Tlhabi.
Other 2013 Fiction prize shortlisted titles include: The Book of War by James Whyle, For the Mercy of Water by Karen Jayes, The Unlikely Genius of Dr Cuthbert Kambazuma by Chris Wadman, Entanglement by Steven Boykey Sidley.
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 29th.
Book details
eBook options – Download now!
by Carolyn on 23 May 2013
The late author Chinua Achebe is to be buried today on his family compound in the town of Ogidi, after his remains arrived in his home country, Nigeria, on Tuesday.
Achebe passed away on 22 March at the age of 82 in Boston, Massachussetts in the US. A memorial service was held for the great writer in South Africa on 28 March.
Yesterday about 2 000 admirers paid their last respects to Achebe at a stadium in Awka in Anambra state in Nigeria’s southeast. Today, Achebe will be buried following a service at a local Anglican church in Ogidi.
It is reported that several Nigerian leaders, foreign dignitaries and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, will be attending the funeral, while The Washington Post points out that Achebe “hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing”.
OGIDI, Nigeria — Writer Chinua Achebe, whose works focused on the conflict between modernity and the way of life in rural Nigeria, has returned home for the final time.
Achebe’s corpse arrived Wednesday in his native Anambra state. There, local government officials and writers feted the late novelist, who died in March at the age of 82. While the man himself hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing.
Al Jazeera reports from the funeral service:
The funeral of Nigeria’s celebrated writer, Chinua Achebe, is due to take place in his small hometown in a ceremony expected to draw crowds of mourners.
Achebe, author of the widely praised novel Things Fall Apart, will be buried on Thursday, two months after he died in the US aged 82.
His private burial on the family compound will follow a service at a local Anglican church.
GMA News was at the stadium in Awka where Achebe was honoured:
AWKA, Nigeria – The body of revered Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe arrived Wednesday in his home state in Nigeria, where hundreds of admirers packed a stadium to pay tribute a day ahead of his funeral.
A wooden coffin transported the body of Achebe, the celebrated author of the novel “Things Fall Apart”, who died in March in the United States at age 82.
The Guardian Nigeria looks at the weeklong transition activities which started on Sunday:
PROMINENT Nigerians from all walks of life continued their effusion of tributes as they paid their last respect to the master storyteller, Prof. Chinualumogu Achebe, who died on March 21 in the United States (U.S.), just as his remains will be interred today in his hometown, Ogidi, Anambra State.
In Abuja, where the weeklong transition activities started on Sunday, the literary giant was eulogised for blazing the trail that others followed. Among the dignitaries during his commendation service at The National Church, Abuja, was the Primate of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, The Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, who presided.
Book details
Image courtesy Al Jazeera
by Protea Boekhuis on 22 May 2013
Pieter Cilliers launched his autobiography, Pilgrim, in the Central Methodist Church in Cape Town on 21 May 2013.
In his speech he shared snippets of his own story and he pleaded for understanding on behalf of young, gay Christians. He warned against a bill that some churches want to put before parliament next year that would allow them to ignore the constitution under the guise of religious freedom.
Pilgrim is published by Protea Book House.
The Central Methodist Church, which once a safe haven for campaigners against apartheid, is today a leading hub in the fight against homophobia. Alan Storey, head of the Central Methodist Church, and Laurie Gaum, head of the Centre for Christian Spirituality, were the speakers at the event.
A number of high-profile campaigners, journalists, activists and artists attended the event. Among them were Ecclesia de Lange, whose court case against the Methodist church was heard that same day, professor Andries van Aarde, singer Lize Beekman, Susan Booyens, Hanlie Retief, Dr Fritz Gaum, Riaan Visman and Jean du Plessis.
Book details
by Thando on 22 May 2013
The heartbreaking, harrowing and exquisitely beautiful stories that fly from eco-adventurer Patricia Glyn’s lips will make your hair stand on end. They will also make you weep and laugh, sometimes at the same time. This was the consensus of many who were at The Book Lounge last week to hear the author describe the remarkable events that went into the making of What Dawid Knew: A Journey with the Kruipers.
The erstwhile radio hostess held the capacity crowd spellbound for almost an hour as she recalled her adventures in the Kalahari with Dawid Kruiper, an elder of the Khomani Bushmen clan. She shared the frustrations and triumps she encountered as she recorded and archived their heritage sites in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where the elders of the community set about sharing a long-held secret that would teach the youngsters about their history and rapidly disappearing culture.
Glyn described Dawid Kruiper as one of the most renowned Bushmen in South Africa. She emphasised that this was the term he chose to define him and his kinfolk due to the negative associations with the word “San” include “thief” and “dirty”. “Dawid is the elected traditional leader of the Khomani people, who live on the outskirts of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where until the early 1900s, Dawid’s ancestors lived and hunted freely.
Glynn recalled the claim won in 1999 against the apartheid authorities that had robbed the Khomani of their ancestral land. The 25 000 hectares of land inside the Park that was offered by way of restitution, along with farms outside it, on which the community could live and run tourism businesses, represented a human rights victory in theory.
Glynn said that in the intervening years many factors including a lack of transport into the park had conspired to prevent the community from accessing all but a small portion of the land. Dawid Kruiper, in his late 70s, was desperate to return to some of the places of great historical and cultural significance that he hadn’t seen since his youth, places his grandchildren had never set eyes on. Aware of his impending death, he approached Glyn with an urgency. “The old man knew that when he died much of his knowledge would vanish with him,” she said.
With South African National Parks’ (SANParks) permission to camp and walk anywhere they needed to visit, the extended Kruiper clan set off with Glyn and her team of film makers to visit a range of sites, both sacred and profane. Battle grounds and hunting grounds, birth places and burial grounds were recorded for posterity and form the core of the story which Patricia was requested to tell.
* * * * * *
Liesl Jobson tweeted live from the event using the hashtag #livebooks:
.
Facebook gallery
Book details
Download this eBook at LittleWhiteBakkie.com
Download this eBook at LittleWhiteBakkie.com
Apr
