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Archive for the ‘Jacana’ Category

It’s an Invasion! South African Writers off to the 2010 London Book Fair in Droves

December 17th, 2009 by Ben - Editor

Achmat DangorAndré BrinkAngela MakholwaAntjie KrogBeverley NaidooBreyten BreytenbachChris van WykDamon GalgutDeon MeyerElias MasilelaElleke BoehmerEtienne van HeerdenGillian SlovoImraan Coovadia, author & academicIsobel DixonIvan Vladislavic & Minky SchlesingerJohn van de RuitJonny SteinbergKopano MatlwaMandla LangaMark GevisserMarlene van NiekerkMaxine CaseNadia DavidsNdumiso NgcoboNiq MhlongoNjabulo NdebelePatricia SchonsteinPieter-Dirk UysSihle KhumaloSindiwe MagonaSiphiwo MahalaThando MgqolozanaWally Mongane SeroteZakes MdaZoe Wicomb

Alert! The London Book Fair may be several months away, but a veritable army of South African writers have already booked their tickets. In several cases, of course, we’re talking bus tickets, because many an SA scribe lives or works in the UK, and won’t have much to do to get to Earl’s Court, where the Fair takes place. But literally dozens of others will be packing for the long-haul flight from JNB to LHR come the tail end of April 2010.

BOOK SA understands that the following authors have given commitments (ranging from tentative to firm) to be part of the LBF’s South Africa Market Focus programme:

Achmat Dangor
André Brink
Angela Makholwa
Antjie Krog
Beverley Naidoo
Breyten Breytenbach
Chris van Wyk
Damon Galgut
Deon Meyer
Elias Masilela
Elleke Boehmer
Etienne van Heerden
Gillian Slovo
Imraan Coovadia
Isobel Dixon
Ivan Vladislavic
John van der Ruit
Jonny Steinberg
Kopana Matlwa
Malika Ndlovu
Mandla Langa
Mark Gevisser
Marlene van Niekerk
Maxine Case
Nadia Davids
Ndumiso Ngcobo
Niq Mhlongo
Njabulo Ndebele
Patricia Schonstein
Paul Trewhela
Pieter Dirk-Uys
Rachel Holmes
Sihle Khumalo
Sindiwe Magona
Siphiwo Mahala
Thando Mgqolozana
Wally Mongane Serote
Zakes Mda
Zoe Wicomb

What a lineup – it’s going to be one heck of a party! (Plus, several other authors who’ve been invited are still deciding whether they can make the trip.) BOOK SA will be there, of course – and we can’t wait to bring all the action to our readers online.

For Londoners who want to get to know these authors better, a sampling of their works:

Bitter FruitA Fork in the RoadThe Thirtieth CandleBegging to be BlackJourney to Jo'BurgOorblyfsel/Voice overLong Walk to FreedomThe ImpostorKaroonag en ander verhaleNumber 43 Trelawney ParkNile Baby30 Nagte in AmsterdamEvery Secret ThingHigh Low In-betweenA Fold in the MapPortrait with KeysSpudThree-letter PlagueInvisible EarthquakeThe Lost Colours of the ChameleonAgaatA Legacy of LiberationAll We Have Left UnsaidSome of My Best Friends are WhiteAfter TearsFools and Other StoriesThe Master's RuseInside QuatroThe Essential Evita BezuidenhoutHeart of AfricaBeauty's GiftWhen a Man CriesA Man Who is Not a ManTo Every Birth It's BloodBlack DiamondYou Can't Get Lost in Cape Town

Book details

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Invisible Earthquake: A Woman’s Journal Through Stillbirth

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Some of My Best Friends are White

Images courtesy BeverleyNaidoo, Financial Mail, African-writing, The JC, MG TallStoriesBooks and Victor Dlamini.

Cats: Afrikaans, Biography, Children, Crime, Fiction, Humour, International, Jacana, Kwela, LBF 2010, Lifestyle, Misc, Non-fiction, Poetry, Politics, Short Stories, South Africa, Travel, Umuzi
Tags: 30 nagte in Amsterdam, A Change of Tongue, A Fold in the Map, A Fork in the Road, A Legacy Of Liberation, A Man Who is Not a Man, A woman's journal through still birth, Abridged, Achmat Dangor, Afrikaans, After Tears, Agaat, AIDS, All We Have Left Unsaid, ANC, Andre Brink, Angela Makholwa, Antjie Krog, Ayebia Clarke Publishing, Bangula, Beauty's Gift, Begging to be Black, Beverley Naidoo, Biography, Bitter Fruit, Black Diamond, BOOK SA - News, Breyten Breytenbach, Chameleon, Chick Lit, Children, Chris van Wyk, Circumcision, Country of My Skull, Crime, Damon Galgut, David Philip, Deon Meyer, Elias Masilela, Elleke Boehmer, English, Etienne van Heerden, Every Secret Thing, Exile, Fiction, Fools and Other Stories, Gender, Gillian Slovo, Harper Collins, Harvill Secker, Heart of Africa, High Low In-between, History, HIV, Human & Rousseau, Humour, Illustrated Long Walk to Freedom, Imraan Coovadia, Indian Ocean, Inside Quatro, International, Invisible Earthquake, Is it Coz I'm Black?, Isobel Dixon, Ivan Vladislavic, Jacana, Jacana Media, Joburg and what-what, Johannesburg, John van de Ruit, Jonathan Ball, jonny steinberg, Journey to Jo'Burg, Karoonag en ander verhale, KwaMagogo, KwaZulu-Natal, Kwela, Kwela Books, LBF, LBF 2010, Lifestyle, London Book Fair, Long Walk to Freedom, Lusikisiki, Mahmoud Darwish, Malika Ndlovu, Mandla Langa, Mark Gevisser, Marlene van Niekerk, Maxine Case, Memoir, Misc, Modjaji Books, Ndumiso Ngcobo, Nelson Mandela, Nile Baby, Niq Mhlongo, Njabulo S Ndebele, Non-fiction, Number 43 Trelawney Park, Oorblyfsel/Voice over, Organ donation, Paddy Bouma, Palgrave Macmillan, Pan Macmillan, Patricia Schonstein, Paul Trewhela, Penguin, Philosophy, Picador, Picador Africa, Pieter Dirk Uys, Poetry, Politics, Portrait with Keys, Publisher, Random House Struik, SARS, Short Stories, Sihle Khumalo, Sindiwe Magona, Siphiwo Mahala, SizweS Test, Some Craciun, Some Illustrator, Some of My Best Friends are White, South Africa, South Africa Market Focus, South African Revenue Service, Spud, Spud Milton, Spud: Learning to Fly, Stillbirth, Subversive Thoughts From An Urban Zulu Warrior, Sue Fawcus, SWAPO, Tafelberg, Thabo Mbeki And The Future Of The South African Dream, Thando Mgqolozana, The Essential Evita Bezuidenhout, The Impostor, The Lost Colours of the Chameleon, The Master's Ruse, The Thirtieth Candle, Three Letter Plague, To Every Birth It's Blood, Translation, Travel, Two Dogs, UKZN Press, Umuzi, Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO, Virago, Wally Mongane Serote, When a Man Cries, Xhosa, Xhosa Circumcision, You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, Zakes Mda, Zoe Wicomb
 

The Book Lounge’s Books of the Year 2009

December 8th, 2009 by Ben

A Fork in the Road'n Vurk in die padAl is die maan 'n misverstandAn Elegy for EasterlyAs almal ver isBegging to be BlackBettina Valentino and the Picasso ClubCakes to Celebrate Love and LifeDaddy's GirlExhibit AHigh Low In-betweenInvadedThe Last ResortLoad-sheddingMiss BeautifulNative NostalgiaPlease, Take PhotographsRefugeSanta GamkaSaracen at the GatesSouth Africa EatsSouth African Art NowStaan in die algemeen nader aan venstersStrange FruitThe Elephant in the RoomThe Legend of Colton H BryantThe Tale of HowThe Woman Who Lived in a TreeThere Was This GoatTouchWays of Staying

The Book Lounge's books of the yearAlert! The Book Lounge has released its list of 2009’s must-have reads – a terrific, considered collection of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and cookbooks that features many works of SA Lit (all shown above).

Congratulations to BOOK SA members André Brink, Petina Gappah, Margie Orford, Sarah Lotz, Imraan Coovadia, Leonie Joubert, Sindiwe Magona, Andrew Brown, Eben Venter, Loftus Marais, Helen Moffett, Maya Fowler, Don Pinnock, Karina Magdalena Szczurek and Kevin Bloom for making the cut.

If you haven’t started your Christmas shopping yet, take this as a sign and high thee to the Book Lounge!

Book details (SA books only)

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Please, Take Photographs

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Invaded: The Biological Invasion of South Africa

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Strange Fruit

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The Elephant in the Room

Cats: Academic, Afrikaans, Biography, Crime, Fiction, Food, Green, Jacana, Lifestyle, Misc, Non-fiction, Poetry, Politics, Short Stories, South Africa, Tafelberg, Travel, Youth, Zimbabwe
Tags: 'n Vurk in die pad, 2009, A Change of Tongue, A Fork in the Road, A Memoir of Zimbabwe, Academic, Africa, Afrikaans, AIDS, Al is die maan 'n misverstand, Alex Smith, Alexandra Fuller, Alistair Morgan, An Elegy for Easterly, Andre Brink, Andrew Brown, Anne Landsman, Antjie Krog, As almal ver is, At Risk, Autobiography, Begging to be Black, Bettina Valentino and the Picasso Club, Biography, Biological Pollution, Blackheart Books, BOOK SA - News, Books of the Year, Byron Loker, Cakes, Cakes to Celebrate Love and Life, Callie Maritz, Cape Town, Clare Hart, Country of My Skull, Crime, Daddy's Girl, Damon Galgut, Danie Marais, DayOne Publishing, Don Pinnock, Douglas Rogers, Eben Venter, Elleke Boehmer, Elton John, Emigration, Emma van der Vliet, English, EU Literary Award, Eugene Marais Prize, Exhibit A, Faber and Faber, Farrar Strauss Giroux, Fiction, Food, Georgie Allen, Getaway magazine, Green, Harvill Secker, Helen Moffett, Henrietta Rose Innes, High Low In-between, History, http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2533018&l=6c1248a8e5&id=538696078, Human & Rousseau, Immigration, Imraan Coovadia, Invaded, Invasive Species, Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose, Ivan Vladislavic, Jacana, Jacana Media, Jacob Dlamini, Jonathan Ball, jonny steinberg, Julia Louw, Karina Magdalena Szczurek, Kevin Bloom, Kopano Ratele, KwaZulu-Natal, Kwela, Lauren Beukes, Leonie Joubert, Liesl Jobson, Lifestyle, List, Liz McGregor, Load Shedding, Loftus Marais, Margie Orford, Mari-Louis Guy, Mary Watson, Maureen Isaacson, Maya Fowler, Memoir, michiel heyns, Misc, Miss Beautiful, Modjaji Books, Nadine Gordimer, Native Nostalgia, Niki Daly, Non-fiction, Nosisi Mpolweni, Oil Industry, Okwui Enwezor, Organ donation, Penguin, Petina Gappah, Phillippa Cheifitz, Philosophy, Photography, Picador Africa, Please, Poetry, Politics, Protea Boekhuis, Publisher, Quivertree Publications, Random House Struik, Refuge, Roger Bosch, RoseLee Goldberg, Santa Gamka, Saracen at the Gates, Sarah Lotz, Sarah Nuttall, SARS, Short Stories, Sindiwe Magona, Some Craciun, Some Editor, Some Illustrator, Some Other Editor, Some Other Illustrator, South Africa, South Africa Eats, South African Art Now, South African Revenue Service, Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, Stan Engelbrecht, Stories of Contact by South African Writers, Strange Fruit, Struik, Subtitle, Sue de Groot, Sue Williamson, Suid-Afrikaners skryf huis toe, Suid-Afrikanser skryf huis toe, Susan Mann, TAC, Tafelberg, Take Photographs, Tamsen de Beer, The Biological Invasion Of South Africa, The Blackheart Gang, The Elephant in the Room, The Last Resort, The Legend of Colton H Bryant, The Tale of How, The Woman Who Lived in a Tree, There was this Goat, Touch, Travel, TRC, Treatment Action Campaign, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, UKZN Press, Umuzi, Ways of Staying, Willemien Brummer, Wits University Press, Writing On and Over the Edge of South Africa, Wyoming, Youth, Zebra Press, Zimbabwe, Zinaid Meeran, Zoe Wicomb
 

Jeremy Gordin Hounds Trewhela and Malan

November 17th, 2009 by Sophy

Inside QuatroZumaResident AlienIn an “au courant” piece on new SA-related books, Jeremy Gordin, author of Zuma: A Biography, pooh-poohs the concerns about South Africa raised by Paul Trewhela (Inside Quatro) and Rian Malan (Resident Alien), with regard to the rising influence of the Communist Party here.

But this hasn’t stopped Trewhela from sounding the warning klaxons against allowing the SACP a greater say in SA’s future:

I’ll forgive a man who can write well just about anything – which is why the first book I want to mention is the recently-published Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and Swapo (Jacana Books) by Paul Trewhela. Trewhela writes wonderfully, with passion and enormous clarity, and anyone interested in our “real” recent history should read this book.

The reason I have to “forgive him” is that I find him annoying – like a neighbourhood dog that barks at 3am every day and won’t stop. And one of the issues about which he bangs on incessantly is Jacob Zuma’s alleged complicity in the death in Lusaka of Muziwakhe Ngwenya, better known as Thami Zulu.

Gordin complains that my book is “annoying” because I sound “like a neighbourhood dog that barks at 3am every day and won’t stop.” But isn’t that what a dog is for, when danger is inside the gate?

It is time for South Africans to read again those classic investigations of totalitarianism: George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938), Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (published 1949), Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940), Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and Czselaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind (1953) – all written while Comrade Stalin was alive, the idolatrous subject of the adulation of the CPSA/SACP.

Book details

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Zuma: A biography

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Resident Alien

Cats: Biography, Jacana, Non-fiction, Politics, South Africa
Tags: 1984, A biography, African National Congress, ANC, Animal Farm, Arthur Koestler, Biography, BOOK SA - News, Communism, CPSA, Czselaw Milosz, Darkness at Noon, English, Exile, George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Homage to Catalonia, Inside Quatro, Jacana, Jacana Media, Jacob Zuma, Jeremy Gordin, Jonathan Ball, Lusaka, Misc, Muziwakhe Ngwenya, My Traitor's Heart, Non-fiction, Paul Trewhela, Politics, Politicsweb, Resident Alien, Rian Malan, SACP, South Africa, Stalin, SWAPO, Thami Zulu, The Captive Mind, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO, Zuma
 

Battle over Hani Legacy: Paul Trewhela Attacks Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp

October 26th, 2009 by Ben - Editor

Inside QuatroHaniAlert! Perusers of this week’s Mail & Guardian may have noticed that the letters page contains a scathing attack by Paul Trewhela on Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp, authors of the new Chris Hani biography, Hani: A life too short.

The M&G hasn’t put the letter online (yet), but a longer version of it has just appeared at Politicsweb – and, like the original, it carries the whiff of serving a dual purpose: first, as an aggressive (not to say openly hostile) act of setting the historical record straight; and second, as a lever for promoting Trewhela’s own book. The shortcomings that he finds in A life too short are remedied, he says, in his treatment of the ANC and SWAPO’s military prison system, Inside Quatro.

Trewhela’s attack appears to boil down to a claim that Smith and Tromp glossed over Hani’s supposed role in secret prison executions. A contest for control over the narrative of the struggle leader’s legacy, then:

There is a serious problem with the recently published biography, Chris Hani: A Life Too Short (Jonathan Ball, 2009), written by Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp. Sello M Alcock hints at the problem but does not identify it in his review in the Mail & Guardian (16 October), when he notes that they “manage only to gloss over” certain complex episodes in Hani’s life in exile.

The authors are senior journalists in South Africa, which makes the matter more disturbing.

Smith is an executive editor of The Star, the premier daily newspaper in the country and the leading media organ of the Independent News & Media group. Tromp is a senior reporter on The Star. This year he won the Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Journalist of the Year award, the CNN African Print Journalist of the Year award and the Vodacom Regional Print News Journalist of the Year award.

Their biography of Chris Hani fails on a most basic criterion, however: integrity to sources.

The result is that complexities in Hani’s life are obscured, and not made properly accessible to the reader.

The crucial chapter concerns Hani’s relation to the mutiny of about 90 percent of the trained troops of Umkhonto we Sizwe in Angola in 1984, the incarceration of leaders of the mutiny in Quatro prison camp, and their subsequent fates.

Book details

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Hani: A life too short

Cats: Angola, Biography, Jacana, Jonathan Ball, Namibia, Non-fiction, Politics, South Africa
Tags: A life too short, ANC, Angola, Beauregard Tromp, Biography, BOOK SA - News, Chris Hani, English, Exile, Hani, Inside Quatro, Jacana, Jacana Media, Janet Smith, Jonathan Ball, Namibia, Non-fiction, Paul Trewhela, Politics, SACP, South Africa, SWAPO, Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO
 

 
 
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