BOOK SA – News

Alert! A Community Publishing Project-funded book, Cival Mills’ This Too Will Pass – about the author’s struggle with “locked-in syndrome”, which has left him fully alert but barely able to move – has sold out its first run of 500 copies, within a week of its publication.

The story of the man and his book is one of two good reasons to click over to the South African Small Publishers Blog at the Centre for the Book. The other is an article by Eclectic Writers’ Club member Lebohang Thaisi, which outlines a history of black writing in the Free State. (In fact, it’s always a good idea to click over to the SASPB; but these two items in particular catch the eye.)

Here are the direct links:

Within one week the first print run (500 copies) of This too will pass was sold out. The following short description and the transcript of the speech made on behalf of Dr Mills at a recent launch help to show why his book is such a wonderful success.

In 2000, when he was only 26 years old, Cival Mills fell asleep at the wheel of his car after a long shift at the hospital where he was working as an intern and a visit to his girlfriend in a neighbouring town. He sustained no neural damage during the accident, but was taken into surgery because of an unstable fracture in his neck. It is then that things went drastically wrong…

• Memoir by Dr Cival Mills Becomes an Overnight Bestseller

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Up till the middle of 1995, just over ten years ago, the Free State seemed an arid area as regards a homegrown black literature. Those blacks who loved literature looked up, with great reverence, to established national black authors like Es’kia Mphahlele, Zakes Mda, Njabulo Ndebele; and to emerging younger voices from other provinces like Gomolemo Mokae and Vonani Bila.

However, around this time a few individuals in the Province were making an impact in the arts and culture…

• Lebohang Thaisi on Black Writing in the Free State

Centre for the Book, Cival Mills, Community Publishing Project, CPP, Eclectic Writers Club, Lebohang Thaisi, Link Love, Misc, News, SASPB, South Africa, South African Small Publishers Blog, This Too Will Pass