BOOK SA - News

Media Watch: BOOK SA Bids Adieu to the Witness

Ben - Editor — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:18:05 +0000

Alert! KwaZulu Natal’s Witness newspaper appears to be the first of SA’s free-to-web media outlets to scurry behind a pay wall. Literary punters visiting the Witness books section and clicking an article – say, an interview with Thando Mgqolozana – are, as of today, if they’re not subscribers to the newspaper, confronted with this:

(Either that, or they’re confronted with an ad for the Witness Maritzburg Matchmaker, which, for those of a certain bent, could provide hour upon hour of literary pleasure.)

Previously, nearly all content on the Witness was free-to-read online. BOOK SA couldn’t find a notice warning subscribers of any imminent change, but perhaps the newspaper has been secretly sold to Rupert Murdoch, and is being used as a test case for the “gain market share as you retreat into a provincial enclave” strategy.

It would appear, then, to be goodbye, but hopefully not adieu – given the nature of the web, which is a helluva shapeshifter – to our reviewing and profiling friends Margaret von Klemperer, Anthony Stidolph, Carol Brammage, Moira Lovell, Nalini Naidoo, Christopher Merrett, Stephen Coan, Sharon Dell, Hazel Barnes, Janet van Eeden and the other members of the Witness‘ lit team. We’ll miss ya!

More media watch

Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature Winners

Ben - Editor — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:52:15 +0000

Alert! The winners of the 2009 Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature – given biennially – were announced last night in Cape Town. Two gold and three silver prizes were dished out – and BOOK SA member Alex Smith was amongst the gong-ees, winning a silver award in the English category. Congratulations to her!

The other winners were Dumisani Sibiya (Zulu – gold), Adeline Radloff (English – gold), Derick van der Walt (Afrikaans – silver) – all pictured above – and Mabonchi Motimele Goodwill (Sotho – silver). All the medalists will have their works published by Tafelberg Publishers, an imprint of the NB group, in October 2010. It’s not certain whether there are other prizes involved (i.e., cold hard cash).

One note of interest is that it’s Sibiya’s third Sanlam win, and van der Walt’s second.

Here’s the release from NB:

Press release

A unique relationship between Sanlam and Tafelberg Publishers has over the years fostered the publication of new titles in youth literature: the biennial Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature. The names of the 2009 winners were announced at a gala evening held at the Officers Club in Century City on Wednesday, 17 March 2010.

The theme of the winning stories, and the evening as a whole, was humour, and there was no shortage of laughs and smiles as the audience was regaled on a choice selection of contrasting tales by master of ceremonies Marc Lottering. The event marked the announcement of the thirteenth Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature after its inception in 1980, when it was initially awarded only every three years, later transforming to a biennial event.

This year, two gold and three silver prizes were awarded. The judges in the English- and Nguni-language categories were especially impressed with the quality of entries they received.

The gold medal winner for 2009 in the Nguni languages category is the Johannesburg author and publisher Dumisani Sibiya, for his story Ngiyolibala Ngife (IsiZulu). The moderator, Professor Bheki Ntuli, recommended that this story be awarded the highest honour. It is the third time that Dumisani Sibiya has received a Sanlam Prize.

In the English-language category debutante Adeline Radloff was named as the winner of a gold prize for her story Sidekick, which the judges described as “a well-plotted adventure story written with a sure hand, a very competent grasp of dialogue, and a fine-tuned sense of irony, which gives the story its rather dark humour”.

The silver award in the English category went to Alex Smith for her story Agency Blue, described as follows by the judges: “Whacky and sophisticated with an accomplished sense of magic realism…sassy and highly original.”

Adeline Radloff and Alex Smith both live in Cape Town.

In the Afrikaans category only one prize was awarded. Derick van der Walt from Pretoria won again, after debuting in 2007 with Lien se lankstaanskoene. This time he received a silver prize for Willem Poprok. The judges were impressed by the flowing story development, fine characterisation and surprising twists that readers will find consistently captivating. They added that “it is an exciting and strong attribute of this story that it also has an underlying theme (that does not impose itself) of diversity between the genders, races and generations”.

In the category for Sotho languages, debutante Mabonchi Motimele Goodwill from Limpopo received a silver prize for his story Ke a hwa, ke a ikepela, written in Sepedi. It is the first time a Sanlam Prize has been awarded to a Sepedi work.

All the winning titles will be available in bookstores from October 2010.

Sanlam and Tafelberg are extremely proud of the positive reaction that the Sanlam Prize elicits. Over the past 13 years many of the winning works have been awarded other prizes, among them the MER Prize for Youth Literature, the Scheepers Prize, ATKV prizes (awarded by young readers), the CP Hoogenhout Award, and M-Net prizes. Some of the works have also been published internationally. Through this competition Sanlam helps develop both readers and authors, providing a much richer literary landscape for young readers.

In her speech, Eloise Wessels, chief executive officer of NB Publishers (of which Tafelberg is an imprint), announced the theme for the next Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature, to be held in 2011. This time round the organisers will be looking for stories in which hope plays a role. The closing date for entries for the next competition is 30 June 2011.

Ends

Media Watch: “Free the Web” to Hopefully Reveal that it’s not a Guerilla Marketing Campaign Tomorrow

Sophy — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:37:13 +0000

The jury is out on the intentions of the mysterious “Free the Web” Campaign that has nuzzled its way onto networking sites and advertising spaces across the net – including taking up prime Google ad space on BOOK SA (see images above).

What exactly does it mean to “Free the Web”? One ADSL discussionista has proposed that this could simply be another promise of cheap uncapped internet. But, with 12,568 fans to their Facebook group, we think there’s more to it than that. This could be good – if Free the Web were getting Telkom to slash its 4mb line rates, for instance. Or it could be cynical and awful – if it amounted to just another guerilla marketing campaign along the lines of the National Skirt Extension Project or the CanYouTwist promotion.

Do fans of Free the Web really know what they are backing or are they simply clicking and following blindly? There are zero – zero – organisational details available online, just a lot of happy-clappy Orwellifying like this:

The purpose of this page is to highlight the effect of high bandwidth costs on ordinary South African small and medium business owners as well as the man on the street.
Something big is on the horizon… the time for change has come.
It’s time to Free the Web! Be part of this movement for change!

But the fog of Free the Web’s surreptitiousness is slowly lifting: a “whois” search on thewrightidea.co.za, which redirects to the Free the Web Facebook page, reveals its registrant to be Grant Wright of Quirk e-Marketing. Finally, some real finger-pointing can commence! Grant, alternatively Quirk, what the hell is going on here?

Grant’s answer would likely be: “Wait till tomorrow” – that’s Thursday, 18 March, when more on the campaign is set to be “revealed”. BOOK SA’s money is on: Free the Web is either driven by iBurst (in which case: fail) or an iBurst-like service that’s slightly cheaper than iBurst (in which case: fail again, unless the speed is 4mb and the bandwidth is essentially uncapped). BOOK SA’s hopes are pinned on: Free the Web will blow us out of the water with a truly innovative offering that will actually bring about the unshackling of web users in SA. Ooh, can’t wait. Now, about Telkom’s line rates…

Source links

Seabrook007 @BOOKSA
MyBroadband.co.za Forum
FreeTheWebSA on Twitter
Free The Web South Africa on Facebook

More Media watch

World Cup Link Love: The Real Soccer Fields of South Africa

Sophy — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:48:46 +0000

The blurb, notes and links related to a new book published for the upcoming FIFA World Cup:

If we can learn anything from our unique, energetic Mzansi style, which was created in such unsuitable surroundings of the township streets, then we should have hope.
– Jennifer Malec, Kick-Off Magazine

Soccer is more than a game for entertainment or a sport for prestige in South Africa. And there is more to a soccer field than a flat, open area with neatly trimmed grass.

In South Africa, a soccer field is a place of camaraderie and fun, a community hub, an alternative to crime, a sporting battlefield. It may be a road, a parking lot, a beach or purposely built pitch. And it might be used by children, club teams, carefree strangers passing by, or cattle.

The Real Soccer Fields of South Africa explores all of these fields through a collection of photographs by Christiaan Vorster, young South African photographers, the DreamFields Project and Kick-Off Magazine, as well as a few international photographers.

Beyond the fields themselves, specially written articles and features focus on the meaning of these spaces, highlighting the obstacles South African soccer players face, and celebrating their passion and determination.

10% of net sales will be donated to the DreamFields Project.

Contributors:

Christiaan Vorster, The DreamFields Project, Kick-Off Magazine, The Extra-Mural Education Project, Grant Veitch, The Richard Allen Foundation, The Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography, St Andrew’s School for Girls, Michaelhouse, Westville Boys’ High School

ReadHill Publishing Home

More link love

Book details

The Real Soccer Fields of South Africa by Christiaan Vorster and others
Publisher homepage
EAN: 9780986975400
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Two Writers from Africa on the Orange Prize Longlist

Ben - Editor — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:11:31 +0000

Alert! The longlist for the £30 000-plus-a-statue-named-Bessie Orange Prize for fiction, the UK’s (world’s?) premiere women-writers-only literary award, has been announced.

When I first saw it, my bleary eyes deceived me into thinking that there were no African longlistees. Two rapid-fire tweets from @BOOKSA friend @urbanrenewal quickly put me to rights, however (click here and here). There are in fact at least two writers of African provenance on the list: Nadifa Mohamed, who was born in Somalia and Laila Lalami (@lailalalami), who was born in Morocco. Lalami is currently listed as living in Los Angeles; while Mohamed apparently lives in the UK.

Here are the blurbs for their longlisted books:

Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
A stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of east Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camp, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy’s long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people. A story of displacement and family.

Secret Son by Laila Lalami
When a young man is given the chance to rewrite his future, he doesn’t realize the price he will pay for giving up his past…Casablanca’s stinking alleys are the only home that nineteen-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, the film stars flickering on the local cinema’s screen offer the only glimmer of hope to his frustrated dreams of escape. Until, that is, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive. A high profile businessman with wealth to burn, Nabil is disenchanted with his daughter and eager to take in the boy he never knew. Soon Youssef is installed in his penthouse and sampling the gold-plated luxuries enjoyed by Casablanca’s elite. But as he leaves the slums of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a starkly un-glittering reality…

Click here for the Orange Prize longlist in full (it includes the likes of Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel). The Guardian has a nice slideshow of the 2010 longlisted covers, meanwhile; and probably also has the best overall Orange Prize feature page.

The 2010 Orange Prize shortlist will be announced on 20 April, and the winner on 9 June. Good luck to Mohamed and Lalami!

Book details

Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
EAN: 9780007315741
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Secret Son by Laila Lalami
EAN: 9780670918294
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Three from Incwadi Autumn 2010

Sophy — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:22:14 +0000

Gregor Rohrig – Pigeon Flight

Incwadi, an online journal of South African poetry and photography edited by Ingrid Andersen, has released its most recent issue – Autumn 2010.

Contributors to Incwadi Autumn 2010:

Ingrid Andersen, Laura Arbuckle, Gary Cummiskey, Richard de Nooy, Isobel Dixon, Finuala Dowling, Gus Ferguson, Sarah Frost, Megan Hall, Kerry Hammerton, Peter Horn, Samantha Kipling, Anton Krueger, Michelle McGrane, Mandy Mitchell, Helen Moffett, Kobus Moolman, Dashen Naicker, AR Reid, Gregor Rohrig, Arja Salafranca, Tania van Schalkwyk, Crystal Warren, Dan Wylie, Fiona Zerbst.

Three poems from Incwadi Autumn 2010

Mathematics

The short drop is never easy, Erik.
You need to give a lot of thought
to vectors, weights and coefficients
which never were my strongest suit.
But you, my friend, took full measure
of the terminal rationale
before you hit the lab and put
your grim equation to the test.
You scored full marks
All went as you predicted
Beam + rope + knot + body = X
But where does gravity fit in? And how?
And so you left us dangling
shrugging, cursing that
we cannot comprehend
such simple mathematics.

- Richard de Nooy

Doppelganger

In the middle of it all
on a sprung floor
a fellow mingler laughed,
saying I was such a card
I really should meet my other half
and marvel.

Miraculously,
according to the stranger,
my twin was there that night:
in wit and waggish turn of verb
a perfect match. It was uncanny
to find two so alike
at the same party.

We must be introduced –
the wind must whip the flame!
the wave must strike the shore!

“There — at the other end of the room –
can you see which man I mean?”

I didn’t need to look.
I knew it would be you, my own,
and that later, when all our charm was blown
we’d fight in the car on the way home.

- Finuala Dowling

A Thing of Beauty

Cicadas sandpaper-shaping shadows,
sawing away the dry hot holidays,
welding that day and dozens like it
into one deep, burning sky. This,
before words, is our blue and gold childhood
melded in memory’s magnificent workshop,
enameled in a never-ending half-existent noon.

- Isobel Dixon

Read the complete issue of Incwadi Autumn 2010

Poetry Reading: Helen Moffett and Liesl Jobson at Folio Books

Liesl — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:57:09 +0000

Folio Books’ poetry series launched with a bang last month and continues with wicked women’s words from BOOK SA regulars, Helen Moffett and Liesl Jobson. You’re invited to come and share a glass of wine while listening to poems that will delight, shock, comfort and amuse.

Helen Moffett is a freelance writer, editor, academic and poet, who’s lectured as far afield as Trinidad and Alaska. Her academic writings include a great deal of gloomy but necessary work on sexual violence in the post-apartheid context. She writes about cricket because it reminds her why she likes men (and because she loves the game with a passion). She has also published a university textbook on poetry, an anthology of South African landscape writing and several short stories. Her debut collection of poems, Strange Fruit, was recently published by Modjaji Books.

Liesl Jobson is a musician, photographer and writer, and the author of 100 Papers, a collection of prose poems and flash fiction (Botsotso, 2008) and an anthology of poetry, View from an Escalator (Botsotso, 2008). She is the winner of the POWA women’s writing poetry competition and the Ernst van Heerden Creative Writing Award.

Event Details

Date: Friday, 19 March 2010
Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
Venue: Folio Books, | Map
Refreshments: Refreshments will be served
RSVP: Folio Books, FolioBooks@storm.co.za, 021 685 7190

Book Details

Strange Fruit by Helen Moffett
Book Homepage
EAN: 9780980272963
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Scribd.com book preview:

Strange Fruit

Not loading? View in the Little White Bakkie e-books store

Book details

View from an Escalator by Liesl Jobson
Book homepage
EAN: 9780981406831
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s New Book: Dreams in a Time of War, a Childhood Memoir

Ben - Editor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:52:54 +0000

Alert! This month, Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o releases Dreams in a Time of War, a memoir that publishers Harvill Secker describe as “a mesmerising portrait of a young boy’s experiences in an African nation in flux”.
Said country being Kenya, of course. Here’s more from the blurb:
Beginning in the late 1930s, this moving and entertaining memoir describes Ngugi’s day-to-day life as the fifth child of his father’s third wife in a family that included twenty-four children born to four different mothers. Against the backdrop of World War II, which affected the lives of Africans under British colonial rule in unexpected ways, Ngugi spent his childhood as the apple of his mother’s eye before attending school to slake what was then considered a bizarre thirst for learning.
As he grows up, the wider political and social changes occurring in Kenya at this time begin to impinge on the boy’s life in both inspiring and frightening ways. Through telling the story of his grandparents and parents and of his brothers’ involvement on different sides of the violent Mau Mau uprising, Ngugi wa Thiong’o takes us back to a momentous period in Kenyan history, deftly etching a bygone era, capturing the landscape, the people and their culture, and the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war.
The reviews for the book have started to trickle in – watch out for a sampling from the best on BOOK SA later this week.
Book details
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Book homepage
EAN: 9781846553776
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Photo courtesy Victor Dlamini

JM Coetzee: Unamused Aussie (Video)

Ben - Editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:28:39 +0000

Alert! Here’s something to make you smile on a Monday afternoon. Maybe. JM Coetzee recently took part in the Adelaide Writers’ Week Down Under, where he was tasked with introducing several writers, including Britain’s Geoff Dyer (who’s not, gentle reader, to be confused with the Aussie painter Geoffrey Dyer).
Dyer is apparently something of a wit, as his response to Coetzee’s straightforward introduction demonstrates. The question is, did Coetzee find Dyer’s wee (and perfectly harmless) joke quite as amusing as the audience did? On the tape, the master seems as inscrutable as ever:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZIUBLqDMi8[/youtube]
Not loading? Watch on SlowTVAUS
More from SlowTV and the Adelaide Writers Week: JM Coetzee introduces Anna Enquist
Book details
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi: - by Geoff Dyer
EAN: 9781847672704
Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Fatima Meer, RIP: The Links

Ben - Editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:13:46 +0000

As widely reported, author and activist Fatima Meer died in Durban on Friday, and received a state funeral on Saturday, where Winnie Madikizela-Mandela delivered the main speech. Here are the main stories related to Meer’s death published so far:
Obituary: Mail & Guardian
Fatima Meer, the African National Congress stalwart, died in a Durban hospital on Friday afternoon at 81. She had been admitted to hospital a few weeks ago.
The former South African Broadcasting Corporation board member and sociologist, despite crippling banning orders, built up a reputation as a prolific academic and a powerful advocate of gender equality.
Meer survived an apparent assassination attempt by apartheid hitmen in 1977, and attacks in later years, which she blamed on the Black Consciousness Movement and the Inkatha Freedom Party.
Complete article
Feature: Hamba kahle, Fatimaben: Sunday Times
He said Meer, whom Madiba affectionately called Fatimaben (meaning sister Fatima), published Higher than Hope, an early biography of Mandela while he was still in prison.
“In the latter years of his imprisonment, she sent him drafts of her manuscript for correction. After interest was expressed in a film version of the book, she suggested to Mr Mandela that he be played by Sydney Poitier, to which he agreed, in a letter to her in 1989, adding, however, that he was not sure that the American actor would accept the offer.”
Dangor said Meer visited Mandela at his home in Johannesburg in October last year.
Complete article
Funeral coverage: IOL
A tearful Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was among the hundreds of mourners who paid their last respects to struggle activist Fatima Meer at her state funeral at the Durban Exhibition Centre yesterday.
Meer died on Friday at St Augustine’s Hospital after suffering a stroke a few weeks ago at 81.
Madikizela-Mandela said that Meer “was never truly recognised for the work that she had done during her life”.
“I will work for her home to be declared a national heritage site. May her soul rest in peace.”
Complete article
Links from BOOK SA
Livetweets from Meer’s burial service, Grey St Mosque to Badsha Peer Cemetery
John Carlin interviews Fatima Meer
Photo courtesy Victor Dlamini