British Council launches new writing website

The British Council's New Writing website http://newwriting.britishcouncil.org is now live. The theme for this month's focus is Writers on Writing, which examines the inner workings of a writer's mind as two authors discuss the highs and lows of what it takes to be a writer.

Ursula Holden's account of her writing career is inspirational and a homage to her strength and determination. She sent her first novel to over 40 publishers without finding a home for it; her second novel was accepted by Carcanet Press but lack of money prevented publication and it was only when her work was finally picked up by the late Alan Ross of London Magazine that she was finally published. 'Write at Your Own Peril' is an engaging and powerful piece of writing that combines personal memoir with the joys and pains of writing for a living.

Ma Jian left China, uncomfortable at the level of censorship he encountered there. He found Hong Kong to be a city in which he could write freely without losing the inspiration he gained in China. However, when Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese in 1997 his discomfort returned, forcing him to move to the West, far from the people, colours and smells that stimulated his work. His piece 'A Chinese Writer in London' describes the issues he has to confront to continue his work.

The website includes notes for teachers, notes for readers, author interviews and glossaries which we will be updating on a monthly basis, focusing on a wide selection of short stories, poems, novel extracts and essays.

An exhibition of photographs and poetry by 14 South African women

Botsotso and Constitution Hill are proud to present an exhibition of photographs and poetry reflecting and expressing the lives of women in our country as well as the wider world. The exhibition connects with the national month of women action.

The photographers: Neo Ntsoma, Suzy Bernstein, Riana Wiechers, Anna Varney The poets: elsbeth e, Sumeera Dawood, Lisemelo Tlale, Elizabeth Trew, Anet Kemp, Baitse Mokiti, Myesha Jenkins, Arja Salafranca, Makhosazana Xaba, Riana Wiechers, Bongekile Mbanjwa, Anna Varney The 50 photographs and poems are taken from the book ISIS X (Botsotso Publishing), of which Eva Kowalski commented:

“This anthology, edited by Allan Kolski Horwitz, combines contemporary photography and poetry by new South African female writers.

Such an openly women-only venture might attract projections of stereotyped feminism or effeminate style; neither are valid concerning this intelligent, varied, yet ultimately coherent anthology.

“Ostensibly the biggest challenge in putting together an anthology of such size is attempting to create a sense of unity and congruency while maintaining the clarity and strength of each unique voice, and Isis X manages this very well. The compiled texts range from humorous personal insights to poignant social observations to spirited expressions of anger and hope. That said, it is clear that certain themes and experiences are shared between works and authors; and these are noteworthy from both the point of view of poetry and photography connoisseurship and those interested in gender issues and other such subjects inevitably dealt with when women make art.” Exhibition opening will take place at 6pm for 6.30pm on Thursday, 2 August 2007 in the atrium of the Womens Jail Exhibition Space, the Womens Jail, Constitution Hill complex, Kotze St, Hillbrow The guest speakers will be Keketso Semoko (actress and womens activist)and Odette Geldenhuys (legal rights activist and documentary film maker). A reading by several of the poets (Myesha Jenkins, Arja Salafranca, Elizabeth Trew, Bongekile Mbanjwa and Anna Varney) will follow.

During August two further activities focusing on women will take place at the exhibition site:

1. Walkabout with the photographers and poets - 11am Saturday 11 August 2007
2. Evening of Women's Poetry (featuring Makhosazana Xaba, Uhuru Mahlodi, Donna Smith, and others as well as having an Open Mike component) * 6pm, Friday, 24 August 2007

Winner of the Caine Prize 2007 announced

Uganda’s Monica Arac de Nyeko has won the 2007 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for Jambula Tree from ‘African Love Stories’, Ayebia Clarke Publishing 2006. The Chair of Judges, Jamal Mahjoub from Sudan, announced Monica as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held this evening (Monday, 9 July) in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Jamal Mahjoub described her story as “a witty and touching portrait of a community which is affected forever by a love which blossoms between two adolescents”.

Monica Arac de Nyeko was born in Uganda . She studied at Makerere and Groningen universities for a degree in Education and an MA in Humanitarian Assistance. She is a member of the Uganda Women Writers Association (FEMRITE), was a literature and English language teacher at St Mary College, Kisubi, an Early Warning Consultant in Rome and later a Reports Officer in Khartoum. She has been a Fellow on the British Council’s Crossing Borders programme and was also shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2004 for Strange Fruit. Her short stories Jazz, Miracles and Dreams and City Link are soon to be published.

Also on this year’s shortlist were:

Uwem Akpan (Nigeria), ‘My Parents Bedroom’ The New Yorker June 12, 2006

E.C Osondu (Nigeria) ‘Jimmy Carter’s Eyes’, AGNI Fiction Online 2006

Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa) ‘Bad Places’, New Contrast vol 31 no4 Spring 2003

Ada Udechukwu (Nigeria) ‘Night Bus’, The Atlantic Monthly, August 2006

Kenyan Billy Kahora’s ‘Treadmill Love’ from ‘The Obituary Tango’ Jacana/New Internationalist 2006, came in as highly commended by this year’s judges.

This year the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC , as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

Margie Orford, Michelle Matthews @ 20 Dunkley Mews, Cape Town

Top SA crime writer, Margie Orford, has developed what most writers dream of - an engaging protagonist who will develop into a series.

Orford is an award winning journalist, writer, photographer and film director. Michelle Matthews is the publishing manager of Oshun Books (Struik). Michelle will be talking about how to make your book as publishable as possible and answering all your questions on how to submit to a publisher.

Date: Thursday 26 July, Time: 6pm for 6.30pm.
Cost: R100 for wine and delicious snacks.
Venue: 20 Dunkley Mews, Dunkley Square, Gardens
RSVP: capetown@thewriteco.co.za

The Write Co short story competition 2007

The Write Co has announced that it will run this competition for the second time. The theme is "Paint it Black!".
"We introduced the competition due to an increasing interest in the short story last year," says Amanda Patterson, owner of The Write Co. The contest drew over 500 entries from all over the world. “We're hoping to double that number this year,” she adds.

Fiction writing courses run by The Write Co have turned 27 graduates into published authors. One of these is Harry Cronje author of the short story collection, Fanyana Talks to the Animals (Struik).

Another is Writers Write graduate and Write Co facilitator and editor, Morné Malan. Morné was one of the winners of the SA Pen Award for his short story - Jason's Kiss. Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee was the judge.

Morné went on to win Tafelberg's Great Novel Competition, in the Debut Novel Category. The judges were Prof. Andre P. Brink, Jakes Gerwel and Louise Viljoen. This novelist, playwright, copywriter and editor, facilitates Skrywers Skryf for The Write Co.

KISS is The Write Co's classic short story workshop. Mail info@thewriteco.co.za to find out more.

The Write Co's aim is to get as many South African popular fiction authors published as possible. Sarah Bullen opened the first Write Co franchise in Cape Town in June 2007.

PRIZES

1st Prize: Writers Write course - valued at R3 500, 00, or gift vouchers for The Write Co valued at R3 500, 00, your story published in The Write Co Newsletter, The Citizen Vibe and on The Write Co Website

2nd Prize: 1 year's subscription to The Write Club, worth R1 800.00

3rd Prize: 4 hours with one of our personal writing coaches, worth R1 400.00

Judges:
Amanda Patterson – The Write Co Founder and author of I See the Moon, Writers Write 1, Writers Write 2 and Rewrite your future
Morné Malan – Winner of The Best Debut Novel 2007 and a winner in the short story SA Pen short story award
Sarah Bullen – Cape Town's Write Co principal, author of Hey Baby! And Make Money Freelancing, publisher editor, and life coach

Entries will be accepted from 1 July 2007 until end September 2007.

Penguin launches another UCT MA graduate work

Blood Kin is a shocking exploration of how banal evil can be and how every one of us, at some stage in our lives, could be accused of being complicit. Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel’s devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity’s most atavistic impulses – vanity, obsession and vengeance – seethe relentlessly, just beneath the veneer of civilisation.

Ceridwen Dovey grew up between South Africa and Australia. She received a scholarship to study Anthropology at Harvard University as an undergraduate, then moved to Cape Town for a few years to write her first novel, Blood Kin. She is now doing a PhD in Anthropology at NYU in New York.

Click here to read an extract

BOTSOTSO will be launching six new titles at Xarra Bookshop

BOTSOTSO will be launching six new titles at Xarra Bookshop, Mary
Fitzgerald Square, Newtown: 6pm, Thursday 19 July, 2007

Collections of poetry

FALLING FROM SLEEPby Mark Espin, a non-dogmatic, activist poet whose
exercises in the philosophical evocation of life in Cape Town are
emotional and intellectual

BELLA, the collected poems of Isabella Motadinyane who died in 2003,
and was one of the founder members of the Botsotso Jesters poetry
performance group; her surreal and multi-lingual work offers a sharp
female perspective on South Africa

POETIC LICENSEby Mike Alfred, the septuagenarian poet of Troyville,
Johannesburgwhose wry exposures of the human and the natural are
sophisticated and humorous yet down to earth and cutting

A PRIVATE PART,poems and drawings by Lionel Murcott, is the interplay
between word and image, Lionel being equally proficient with both; a
teacher at the National School for the Arts in Johannesburg, he is well
placed to push multimedia collaboration to the limit

Fiction

TOTEM AND CANDIDATE/SING BABYLON,two novellas by Marcelle du Toit,
offering contrasting southern African scenarios: one set in Hillbrow,
being a tale of Rastas, Jewish neurosis, jazz fiends, hallucination and
the contradictions African patriarchy creates for independent black
women; the second set in a 'mythical' African state in the
post-liberation period when the corruptiveness of power shows its dirty
hand and forces different elements to reconsider their allegiances

Drama

BLIND VOICESa collection of four radio plays by Kobus Moolman, who is
also a poet and creative writing teacher from Pietermaritzburg; the main
play, SOLDIER BOY, about the effect of the Total Onslaught wars fought
by White South Africa, was broadcast by the BBC in 2003. A CD recording
of that production is attached to the book. The other three plays are
more abstract, almost Becketian, and have yet to be recorded.

The launch will feature readings from the books and a discussion on the
role and status of independent, non-commercial publishers.

Chimurenga Magazine launches new issue with appearances at two of world's biggest contemporary art events

Cape Town based publication of arts, culture and politics, from and about Africa and its Diasporas, Chimurenga Magazine launches its new issue, Chimurenga 11 - Conversations With Poets Who Refuse To Speak with live appearances at two of the world's biggest contemporary art events.

On Sunday 24 June 2007 the magazine will provide the incendiary musical mix at the Africa Remix opening at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Joubert Park, Johannesburg. Expect a renegade audio "Felasophy" session featuring Abrahamse's Jafrobeat Ensemble along with spoken word ranthologist Lesego Rampolokeng; powerhouse polyrhythmic drummer Kesivan Naidoo, Nigerian Afro-soul fusion trumpeter Olufemi Ogunkoya and urban conscious treknology, tricknology and tracknology courtesy of DJ Khenzero. From 20h30 till late.

Chimurenga will also be spreading its word at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany this July. Taking place every 5 years, documenta is one of the world's most important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Chimurenga is one of 90 international magazines selected to contribute to this year's "documenta 12 magazines". Moreover Chimurenga will be in-house at documenta from 2 until 8 July with "House of Truth", an open-house autonomous zone that takes its name from the drinking pit where the makers of the infamous Drum magazine gathered nightly for informal seminars with Can Themba as resident deconstructor. At "House of Truth" fluids, bodies and burning minds coalesce to burning grooves courtesy of DJ Ntone.

Visitors to both events will be able to grab copies of the new Chimurenga. Titled Conversations With Poets Who Refuse To Speak, the latest instalment features a heady mix of words and images that give voice to silence. "So much has been said about speech: speaking up, speaking for oneself, not being allowed to speak, speaking for the other who'd rather speak for self, but very little is said about the virtue of silence," says editor Ntone Edjabe. "So much said about making oneself visible, but little said about mining the rich depths of absence. This issue is about silence, disappearing oneself as act. Though it's often one of abdication, could it be defiance, resistance even? - a challenging idea, in a culture where struggle about seeking exposure, giving voice, making visible and all that stuff..."

Inside you'll find everything from Iranian scholar Asef Bayat writing on the quiet encroachment of the ordinary, to an unsolicited rant from Cape Town-based writer Gael Reagon, serious Melodifius thunkish funk from acclaimed British writer Geoff Dyer, sharp travel discourse from South African poet, journalist, radio producer and activist Sandile Dikeni and American criminal and author, Jack Henri Abbott's words about life in the hole.

Also: Christopher Wise's search for African literary provocateur Yambo Oulogeum; Liesl Jobson on bad breasts; Anthony Joseph on the African origins of UFO; Che via Jay Cantor on el comandante's punitive silence; Achille Mbembe on the death of Um Nyobe; Suren Pillay on making pictures; Nwando Mbanugo to the little red hat of power; Eric Darton on what to say when its time to speak; Stacy Hardy on Julius Eastman's caged negratas; Conceição Evaristo on strange fruits; Neelika Jayawardane on Gitmo and Ed Pavlic on unannounced winners.

Images include Ralph Lemon's spaceship drawings, Mario Benjamin's unnamed ghosts, Goniwe minutes before he was gunned down, the Black Ark, drawings from the Ramallah Underground, and "Declensions in Blue", an essay on what silence looks like featuring images by David Hammons, Gordon Parks, Herve Youmbi and Moustapha Dime. The cover is "Sarkozy, Fanon and the jazz baroness", a remix of the cover art of Monk's Underground.

Chimurenga is available from book stores (such as Exclusive Books, South Africa), used-book dealers, cultural events, organisations, collectives and university campuses in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Swaziland, Botswana and Ghana, as well as Germany, the US, Britain and France. The magazine can also be ordered directly online from www.chimurenga.co.za

Highlights of 2007 Cape Town Book Fair

Catch some highlights of the Fair (courtesy of Zoopy.com) with streaming video of:

- Wilbur Smith
- Tertia Albertyn
- John van der Ruit
- The Giggling Gourmet
- Richard Calland and Max du Preez; and many others

http://www.capetownbookfair.com/press-and-media/videos

Attendance figures at the 2007 Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF) were close to double those of the inaugural event last year. Over 49 000 visitors attended the four-day fair at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, which ended on Tuesday. This figure doesn't include the many thousands of children who also attended the event, which was one of the largest to be held at the CTICC ever. [June 19] In 2006, 26 000 visitors attended the fair.

"We are extremely pleased with the figures," said Vanessa Badroodien, Director of the CTBF. "The fair was a huge success, attracting a huge and diverse range of people."
Evidence of the large numbers attending the event was reflected in the convention centre parking garages, which were full for the four days. Even all the overflow parking was taken. CTICC Catering services battled to keep up with the demand for meals and beverages, with queues forming at most refreshment points. Autobank terminals ran out of money on several occasions.

Over 260 journalists, including an international contingent, covered the event. More than 200 authors and 354 exhibitors participated in the fair, with representatives from countries including the United States, Ghana, Germany, India, China and France. Directors from the Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs were in attendance, as well as the heads of the British and Caribbean Publishers' Associations.

Iris Klose, Project Manager/International Department for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is a partner of the CTBF, said that she had been "extremely impressed" with the fair.

"It has been very lively. We combined our visit here to include both a presentation and a stand presence, and they have worked well. Overall, I would say the fair has been a striking success for everybody involved," she said.

Several new features at the book fair proved very popular, noted Badroodien.
"The magazine stands by Caxton and Media 24 were really well supported and pulled large crowds. And our book collections (on Mandela, wine and science fiction/fantasy) were also well supported," she said.

Virtually all of the 470 activities on the CTBF programme were full, whether they covered political issues, literary topics or more entertaining subjects.

"One thing we have realised is that author interactions are a highlight of the fair. Whether we had George Bizos talking about his autobiography, Anthony Horowitz explaining how he writes, or Marion Keyes being hilarious, the public just couldn't get enough," said Badroodien.

Another obvious highlight is the children's programme. "We expanded our zone for kids this year, but it still wasn't big enough," said Badroodien. "And on Monday and Tuesday we had an unexpected influx of children and their parents or teachers, possibly due to the public servants strike action and schools being closed. It called for fast re-organisation on our part."

Aside from the popularity of the events programme, reports from trade delegations and exhibitors were that the business side of the book fair was busy. Most commented on the efficient running of the event, and said they had made many useful connections. Printers, distributors, publishers, book-sellers, illustrators and more were represented on the exhibition floor.

While exhibitors enjoyed the exciting atmosphere created by the thousands of visitors, there was a common request for a business day that was closed to the public. Badroodien has said this will definitely happen next year.

"However, we must keep in mind that this is a part public, part trade event. And we want to encourage as many book-lovers as possible to attend, including young readers. After all, children are the next generation of book-buyers - and authors and publishers," said Badroodien.

In all, she had been "incredibly pleased" with the response to this year's book fair.

"We attracted a diverse and enthusiastic crowd, and they filled up all our events and activities. We had a wide range of exhibitors, with 4% from the continent and an international contingent of 26%. It's fair to say the 2007 CTBF has been a cultural and an economic success - especially considering the dramatic increase in visitor numbers," she said.

Badroodien said that plans were already being made for next year's event, including increasing the space booked for public lectures, establishing a booking system for certain events, creating an entirely separate zone for children and holding a business-only day.

"This year has been wonderful. And based on what we have seen, we feel entirely positive about the 2008 Cape Town Book Fair," she said.

The Cape Town Book Fair is a joint venture between the Publisher's Association of South Africa (PASA) and the Frankfurt Book Fair, in association with the Sunday Times.

Centre for the Book’s 'must read' South African Books for the 2007 Cape Town International Book Fair

In response to an informal poll run by the Centre for the Book, in collaboration with the Cape Town International Book Fair, the Centre for the Book has compiled a list of great books written by South Africans.

‘This is a great way to show that South Africans are reading books written by South Africans,’ said Vanessa Badroodien, Managing Director of the Cape Town Book Fair. ‘And not only that, but that South African books are equal to any book out there.’

There will be a display of the books selected at Stand Q3, the Centre for the Book’s stand at the book fair, and the publishers whose books were chosen for inclusion on this list have supplied copies to be used as prizes for the winners of Lucky draw competitions. There will be two draws per day for small packs of ‘must reads’ and on the last day of the fair there will be a draw for the bumper pack.

The final list of ‘Must Read’ books - 25 (& 5):

A change of tongue -- Antjie Krog, RANDOM HOUSE SA (also as 'n Ander Tongval -TAFELBERG )
African Salad - a portrait of South Africans at home -- Tamsen de Beer and Stan Engelbrecht, DAYONE PUBLISHERS
Agaat -- Marlene van Niekerk, JONATHAN BALL
Coldsleep Lullaby -- Andrew Brown, ZEBRA PRESS (STRUIK)
Confessions of a Gambler -- Rayda Jacobs, KWELA
Die Aandag Van Jou Oe: Gedigte Vir Die Liefde -- Petra Muller, TAFELBERG
Disgrace -- JM Coetzee, VINTAGE RANDOM HOUSE IMPRINT
Dog Eat Dog -- Niq Mhlongo, KWELA
Green-eyed Thieves -- Imraan Coovadia, UMUZI
I remember King Kong (The Boxer) -- Denis Hirson, JACANA
Jamela’s Dress -- Nicky Daly, TAFELBERG
Karoo Boy -- Troy Blacklaws, DOUBLE STOREY
Orion -- Deon Meyer, TAFELBERG
People who have stolen from me - David Cohen, PICADOR AFRICA (PAN MACMILLAN)
Portrait with Keys -- Ivan Vladislavic, UMUZI
Seasonal Fires -- Ingrid de Kok, UMUZI
Shirley, Goodness and Mercy -- Chris van Wyk, PICADOR AFRICA (PAN MACMILLAN)
Skyline -- Patricia Schonstein Pinnock, DAVID PHILLIP
Some Afrikaners Revisited -- David Goldblatt, UMUZI
Song Trials -- Mxolisi Nyezwa, UKNZ PRESS (THE UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS * originally a Gecko Press publication)
Spud -- John van der Ruit, PENGUIN
The Abundant Herd -- Marguerite Poland and Leigh Voight, FERNWOOD PRESS
The Children's Day Michiel Heyns JONATHAN BALL, (also as Verkeerdespruit HUMAN & ROUSSEAU)
The Good Cemetery Guide * Consuelo Roland, DOUBLE STOREY
The Native Commissioner -- Shaun Johnson, PENGUIN
The Quiet Violence of Dreams -- K Sello Duiker, KWELA
The Whale Caller -- Zakes Mda, PENGUIN
Touch my Blood --- Fred Khumalo, UMUZI
Welcome to my Hillbrow -- Phaswane Mpe, UKNZ PRESS (THE UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS)
ZAPIRO, The Zuma Code -- DOUBLE STOREY

McSweeney's needs your help

Dave Eggers' brilliant indie publishing venture McSweeney's is in dire straits:

As you may know, it's been tough going for many independent publishers, McSweeney's included, since our distributor filed for bankruptcy last December 29. We lost about $130,000 -- actual earnings that were simply erased. Due to the intricacies of the settlement, the real hurt didn't hit right away, but it's hitting now. Like most small publishers, our business is basically a break-even proposition in the best of times, so there's really no way to absorb a loss that big.

We are committed to getting through and past this difficult time, and we're hoping you, the readers who have from the start made McSweeney's possible, will help us.

Over the next week or so, we'll be holding an inventory sell-off and rare-item auction, which we hope will make a dent in the losses we sustained. A few years ago, the indispensible comics publisher Fantagraphics, in similarly dire straits, held a similar sale, and it helped them greatly. We're hoping to do the same.

So if you've had your eye on anything we've produced, now would be a great time to take the plunge. For the next week or so, subscriptions are $5 off, new books are 30 percent off, and all backlist is 50 percent off. Please check out the store and enjoy the astounding savings, while knowing every purchase will help dig us out of a big hole.

Many of our contributors have stepped up and given us original artwork and limited editions to auction off. We've got original artwork from Chris Ware, Marcel Dzama, David Byrne, and Tony Millionaire; a limited-edition music mix from Nick Hornby; rare early issues of the quarterly, direct from Sean Wilsey's closet; and more. We're even auctioning off Dave Eggers's painting of George Bush as a double-amputee, from the cover of Issue 14.

This is the bulk of our groundbreaking business-saving plan: to continue to sell the things we've made, albeit at a greatly accelerated pace for a brief period of time. We are not business masterminds, but we are optimistic that this will work. If you've liked what we've done up to now, this is the time to ensure we'll be able to keep on doing more.

Plenty of excellent presses are in similar straits these days; two top-notch peers of ours, Soft Skull and Counterpoint, were just acquired by Winton, Shoemaker & Co. in the last few weeks. It's an unsteady time for everybody, and we know we don't have any special claim to your book-buying budget. We owe all of you a lot for everything you've allowed us to do over the last nine years, for all the time and freedom we've been given.

Once this calamity is averted, we'll get back to our bread and butter -- the now-legendary Believer music issue is already creeping into mailboxes everywhere; Issue 24 of our quarterly is in the midst of a really pretty silkscreening process; and in July the fourth issue of Wholphin, our DVD magazine, will slip over the border from Canada, bringing with it some very good footage of Maggie Gyllenhaal and a Moroccan drummer who messes up a wedding in an entertaining way. And then a couple of months after that, we'll publish a debut novel from a writer named Millard Kaufman. This book is exactly the kind of thing McSweeney's was created to do: The novel came through the mail, without an agent's imprimatur, and it was written by a first-time novelist. This first-time novelist is ninety years old. It was pulled from the submissions pile and it knocked the socks off of everyone who read it. Millard may well be the best extant epic-comedic writer of his generation, and he stands at equal height with the best of several generations since.

Whatever you can do to help in the coming days, we thank you a thousand times. We'll keep updating everybody on how this is going over the next few weeks; for now, pick up a few things for yourself, your friends, for Barack Obama. More news soon -- thanks for reading.

Yours warmly,
The folks at McSweeney's

Christopher Hope reviews Dave Eggers' What is the What

In What Is the What by Dave Eggers Christopher Hope discovers how mass murder is made palatable

Saturday June 9, 2007
The Guardian

What Is the What
by Dave Eggers
475pp, Hamish Hamilton, £18.99

Poetry workshop with Finuala Dowling in Kalk Bay

Saturday 21st July
from 16h00 to 17h30

Venue "The Forge", Windsor Rd, Kalk Bay
Fee: R80

If you would like to book, please reply to nuala@gem.co.za

*New* short fiction: Shaba Park by Lloyd Igane

Lloyd Igane has spent more than half his life writing ads for radio, television and print. He has been a copywriter, creative director, producer and fire fighter at various advertising agencies in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and once in Lagos, Nigeria. He has been involved in various film development projects, written numerous articles for The East African, The Daily Nation, The Standard and other publications in East Africa. His tongue-in-cheek column Out of My Mind runs in Sokoni, the official newsletter of the Marketing Society of Kenya. He is registered for a degree in Literature and Communications at the University of Nairbi where Shaba Park originated from a class project in the unit “Sources of Children’s Literature”.

Shaba Park by Lloyd Igane

Angloplat short story competition 2007 launches

Awarding a total of R65 000 in prize money and the chance to win platinum jewellery.

"We encourage you to start writing an exciting, gripping and original story of between 4500 and 5000 words in English to be sent typed or handwritten. This competition does not disqualify writers for imperfect grammar or spelling, as long as the story is interesting."

Anglo Platinum and Beulah Thumbadoo & Associates (BTA) announced that the 2007 BTA/Anglo Platinum short story competition is officially open for entries. For the past 13 years, this competition has helped to give a voice to thousands of ordinary South Africans and has created a wealth of local writing, receiving over 12000 stories from throughout southern Africa. The competition, one of the most entered writing competitions in the world, has been overwhelmingly successful in raising awareness about writing and reading. In addition, the prize money for the competition, totalling R65 000 (with R25 000 for first prize), is among the highest for any short story writing competition

Last year Renee Muller won first prize for her tale “Mrs Tilbury’s Cast-offs”, about an old lady who invites local children into her home to sing along as she revisits her piano. Mrs Tilbury and the youngsters are richer for the experience. Renee is a former drama, language and education practitioner, currently a writer and translator in Cape Town.

Entrants are asked to write a gripping and original story of between 4500 to 5000 words. The competition is unique in that it focuses on content over form, understanding that many entrants will be writing in their second or third language. Story quality and creativity are the key criteria and entrants are not penalized for imperfect grammar and spelling. As such, stories are submitted from all walks of life, throughout Southern Africa. Ferial Haffajee, Editor-in-Chief of the Mail & Guardian and regular judge, calls the competition, “a date of promise on the literary calendar.”

This is the eighth year that Anglo Platinum is sponsoring this competition. Once again, a piece of platinum jewellery from the Djadji range is up for grabs in a special prize category.

Million Books Campaign

Beulah Thumbadoo, well known reading activist and advocacy worker has managed the short story competition for 13 years. In 2004, she launched the Million Books Campaign. This campaign is a follow-up project which makes books freely available to communities, addressing the South African reality that more than 50% of adults have access to fewer than 10 books.

The BTA Million Books Campaign (with the help of sponsoring organizations and companies) publishes the winning stories from the BTA/Anglo Platinum Short Story Competition each year. These books are then distributed to needy communities free of charge, thus putting interesting and relevant contemporary literature into the hands, homes and libraries of South Africans.

To date, 40 000 books in various formats have been printed and distributed to schools in the Northwest Province and Limpopo.

For more information on the competition, or the Million Books Campaign, please contact:
• Savo Tufegdzic (Creative Media) 011 888 3104

Invitation to Kalk Bay Books for "Interpreting SA" with four Jacana authors

Invitation to launch of Claim to the Country by Pippa Skotnes

Adaptation: CTBF offers lecture

FEW WRITERS MAKE ENOUGH MONEY FROM THEIR BOOKS TO GIVE UP THEIR DAY JOBS.

Eighty percent of all movies, feature films, television dramas, mini-series even documentaries, are adapted from other media written media. For a fiction writer this means a second, and often greater, source income.

At next month's Book Fair, SASWA Cape with the SA Publishers Association and the Cape Town Book Fair, is hosting Julian Friedmann, a leading London literary agent specialising in negotiating film rights for writers. His long experience has given him great insight into how adaptations work, what makes a good adaptation.

His lecture at 10.00am on Tuesday, 19 June will cover the subject thoroughly.

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Why some novels and short stories adapt well to the screen and others do not.
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He will highlight the problems in adaptation that face the script writer.
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Choosing the right subject to appeal to a film producer.
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Should the author adapt the work to the screen or choose the best specialist to make the adaptation?
*
Should the script writer work with the author or alone?

The lecture is for novelists, short story writers, playwrights, script writers and producers to gain insight into the process and its potential.

The lecture will be followed by a Q and A session with experienced adaptation writers who have worked on their own and others' originals. The number of participants is limited to 24 so please respond soon to Anne Taylor taylora@netactive.co.za

Extract from Rosemund J. Handler's new novel, Katy's Kid

Katy's Kid is a vividly textured tale of risk and betrayal and juxtaposes an unlikely trio of two women and the child who both connects and divides them. An intimate portrayal of the bare-bones struggle for survival in the world's oldest profession, it is also a luminous page-turner about love in its limitless guises; about motherhood, sisterhood and friendship.



Read an extract here

Rosemund's short story An Act of Vengeance is available exclusively on iBhuku.com

Centre for the Book invites applications from black artists and illustrators for Illustrators' programme

This fulltime, four-month programme takes place at the Centre for the Book, Cape Town from 1 August 2007 until 30 November 2007.

It brings practicing black artists and illustrators who are interested in picture book illustration together with publishers, established illustrators and experts on children's literature to work on the production of commercially publishable children's books for the 0-6 age group.

Participants will be offered a monthly grant for the duration of the course.

By the end of the Programme you will have a book showcasing your work ready for a publishing deal.

CONTACT: Nokwethu Khojane * 021 423 2669 * E-mail: illustrators.SA@gmail.com

INTERESTED? you need to

* fill in the application form

* write a letter of motivation

* submit a select portfolio

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 20 JUNE 2007

Interview: Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka tells Maya Jaggi how 'repetitions of history' - most recently the atrocities in Darfur - continue to haunt his life and work.

Write Co graduate wins debut novel award

Writers Write graduate and Write Co facilitator and editor, Morne Malan, has won Tafelberg's Great Novel Competition, in the Debut Novel Category. The judges were Prof. Andre P. Brink, Jakes Gerwel and Louise Viljoen.

Morne Malan was shortlisted for the SA Pen Award for his entry - Jason's Kiss. Morne, a novelist, playwright, copywriter and editor, facilitates Skrywers Skryf for The Write Co. This course is the Afrikaans version of Writers Write, which now boasts 25 published graduate authors in only three years.

He has written a laugh-out-loud, contemporary novel, Bush Baby, which Laura Boon, of The Laura Boon Literary Agency, has taken on.

He adds, "I've also written a youth novel about a girl coming to terms with the fact that her brother's gay. The novel is funny. I didn't want another heavy coming-of-age story. I wanted to write something that teenagers and their parents will want to read."

"Morne's strong point is his humour," says Amanda Patterson, founder of The Write Co. "Added to his great plots, wonderful characterisation and his flawless, easy-to-read style, Morne Malan, is a talent to be watched."

Equally talented in English and Afrikaans, one wonders what he will do next. "I might do something in Northern Sotho," he says. "I would like Afrikaans publishers to free their minds of the idea that all Afrikaans novels should be literary," says Morne. "I want to be a writer. And writers do write! I'd also like to help other Afrikaans writers to embrace their passion and to unleash their talent."

Students free at 2007 Cape Town Book Fair

All students currently registered at tertiary institutions in South Africa will be able to attend the 2007 Cape Town Book Fair without paying.

Running from June 16-19 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, this is the largest book fair in Africa and features exhibitors from around the world. Students with a valid student card will have access to a full programme of events which includes book signings, debates, lectures, demonstrations and discussions by leading authors, academics, illustrators and publishers. Launched last year, the inaugural CTBF attracted over 26 000 visitors. This year the floor space has doubled in size and the accompaning programme has been expanded to over 470 activities. The theme of the 2007 CTBF is "More than black on white".

* The Cape Town Book Fair is a joint venture between the Publisher's Association of South Africa (PASA) and the Frankfurt Book Fair, in association with the Sunday Times.

Watch for changes in your author contract: Simon and Schuster affects new rights provision

The Authors Guild is warning members about a new rights provision in Simon & Schuster contracts and urging them to consider not signing with the publisher.

Reversion of book rights is an important right for an author to have. This is an important point to negotiate in your next book contract. Ask your agent or attorney about it and be sure to read the fine print. Otherwise, you may discover that you've lost your reversion rights:

"In an an alert sent to its membership, Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken writes that S&S's new contract language gives the publisher the ability to retain rights to a book for the entire length of copyright, even if the book is not in print but remains in S&S's electronic database. Under its old contracts, rights to a book would revert back to the author if sales reached an agreed upon low level or the book was declared out of print. "This is an electronic warehousing of rights," Aiken said.

"According to the Guild, under the new contract S&S considers a book to be in print, and under its control, so long as it's available in any form, even if no copies are available to be ordered by traditional bookstores. With the new contract language, the Guild asserts, the publisher would be able to stop printing a book and prevent the author from publishing it with any other house. Aiken said the change was first brought to the Guild's attention about a week ago and discussions with authors and agents have confirmed that the new provision is now part of the standard S&S contract.

"Simon and Schuster responded by accusing the agents and authors of overreacting, saying that it is only updating its contracts to comport with the digital age. It then told the Guild that it will negotiate regarding the reversion of rights clause on a book-by-book basis. So far, Simon and Schuster is the only major publisher to try to claim a permanent copyright in an author's works."

Cape Town Book Fair programme available here

Cape Town Book Fair programme
(Adobe PDF)

Jacana invitation to book launch: Coconut by Kopano Matlwa

Cape Town Book Fair 2007 updates

AWARD CEREMONIES AT THE BOOK FAIR:

Two prestigious literary award ceremonies will take place at the Cape Town Book Fair this year, which will run from June 16-19 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

The Sunday Times Literary Awards, comprising the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award and the Sunday Times Award for fiction, are awarded annually for exceptional writing in English by South African authors. Each award carries a prize of R50 000, and will be presented at a gala event attended by local and international writers and publishers.

Last year's fiction prize was won by young Capetonian author Andrew Brown, who scooped the award for his gritty crime novel, Coldsleep Lullaby. The non-fiction award was shared by two writers covering the same topic - Edwin Cameron's Witness to Aids and Adam Levin's Aid Safari. Both books detailed the experience of HIV/Aids from a contemporary and personal perspective.

While the short-list of nominees for the 2007 awards has yet to be announced, speculation on possible contenders has included Marlene van Niekerk for Agaat, Imraan Coovadia for Green-Eyed Thieves, and Shaun Johnson for The Native Commissioner. However, the field is still wide open ...

The other major award presentation will take place during the Opening Ceremony of the book fair on June 15. The Freedom to Publish Prize of the International Publishers' Association (IPA) is an annual award which "recognises a person or an institution that has made a notable contribution to the defence and promotion in the freedom to publish anywhere in the world". The IPA, established in Paris in 1896, represents the publishing industry via 76 national, regional and specialised publishers' associations in 63 countries.

HEALTHY DEBATE:

Due to the success of last year's book fair, which attracted over 26 000 visitors and featured 313 events on the activities programme, an even larger schedule of debates, discussions, readings and lectures has been planned for 2007. Top authors, academics and publishers will take part in the four-day programme, which is being designed to cater for everyone from trade professionals to children.

Academically-compelling discussions on subjects such as the "dumbing down" of intellectual discourse, African scholarship, and the impact of geographic boundaries on academic output have been scheduled. The release of pivotal research on the pricing of books in the country as well as the reading habits of young people in South Africa will be showcased. The fair will also provide a forum for the discussion of publishing and book development on the continent of Africa.

Local and international authors will be launching their books, reading from them, and signing them, covering genres as diverse as graphic novels, biographies and cookery. Already confirmed on the list are best-selling authors Marion Keyes and Anthony Horowitz, as well as 2006 Man Booker winner Kiran Desai.

The theme of this year's fair, "More than Black on White" will provide the context for a variety of workshops and presentations, while several Book Collections, focusing on topics such as Nelson Mandela, Science Fiction and Wine will form a central focus of the programme.

Organisers are aiming to feature at least 333 events on the 2007 programme.

BIGGER AND BETTER:

The second Cape Town Book Fair will occupy double the space of the inaugural event, taking up 10 000 squares metres of space in the Cape Town International Convention Centre during June 2007.

Based on the popularity of the first fair, which hosted 418 exhibitors from 36 countries and attracted 2000 international trade visitors, the business of books will be even bigger and better this year, promise the organisers. Most of the original exhibitors have already signed up for space, with new participants registering daily.

Organisers will be taking precautions to ensure that visitors are not disappointed, such as making sure that top authors present in larger rooms. The popular Children's Zone, which attracted several thousand young people in 2006, will be expanded to accommodate the expected increase in crowds.While visitors to the fair will pay a nominal entrance fee, all the events on the book fair programme are free. Organisers are advising visitors to arrive at least half-an-hour before each scheduled event is due to start in order to secure a seat.

Poetry and storytelling at Cape Town central library

The City Arts & Culture Dept. celebrates Youth Month at the City Hall, Saturday 9 June 9:00 - 4:30. The full day programme includes a creative writing and performance poetry workshop for Youth (16-24), presented by Mark Espin (Centre for the Book) and Bulelwa Basse (Lyrical Base Project);

A storytelling workshop for all ages presented by Marcia Raymond(Central Library); Slam Poetry session for High School Learners.

Kiddies corner and the pain YOUNGWORD poetry event with guest poets Antie Krog, Nicole Moody, Diane Ferrus and others. as well as open Mic sessions. Facilitated by Hugh Hodge.

Email to rfg@iafrica.com or phone 021 7979031 or SMS 083 539 8442 or contact Central Library if you wish to attend the workshop or participate in the Open Mic session.

Housing Works Bookstore Café hosts a reading with Gabeba Baderoon, Yvette Christiansë and Nadia Davids

Housing Works Bookstore Café hosts a reading with Gabeba Baderoon, Yvette Christiansë and Nadia Davids on Thursday, June 7 at 7pm. Three South African women whose writings offer diverse views, understandings and representations of place, nation, belonging and womanhood. Together they present an unforgettable contribution to the South African literary landscape, and bring the diverse experiences of south African women to an American audience.

Gabeba Baderoon’s poetry is often a narration of leaving home, assuming the life of an exiled adult, and negotiating her sense of self against the backdrop of a world demanding explanations for identity. An extract of Nadia Davids’ play explores notions of home, loss, mourning, nostalgia and exile, all evoked in an attempt to recover the ephemeral landscape of District Six in Cape Town. Yvette Christiansë examines the history of South African slavery in her epic poetry.

Gabeba Baderoon is the author of The Dream in the Next Body (Kwela/Snailpress, 2005) and A Hundred Silences (Kwela/Snailpress, 2006). She received the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry 2005. The Museum of Ordinary Life, her short collection of poems and creative non-fiction, was also published in 2005. Her poetry has been published in several languages, and in many anthologies.

Nadia Davids is an acclaimed playwright and director; the recipient of two A.W. Mellon Fellowships and the winner of the Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Director in 2003. She has written and directed four plays, Khumbula (1995), Doc’s Wife (1999) The Butterfly and the Wog (2000), and At Her Feet (2002) – which received international acclaim while touring Southern Africa, Holland and during two stagings in NYC.

Yvette Christiansë is a novelist, poet and scholar. She was born and raised in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Mbabane. Her book of poems Castaway was short-listed for the PEN International Poetry Prize 2001. Her novel, Unconfessed is based on the life of a Cape Colony slave woman (Other Press, November 2006). Her poetry, prose and scholarly writing have been published in South Africa, Australia, Canada, France and the USA.

PRESS QUERIES ONLY CONTACT: Chaya Thanhauser, Special Events and Marketing, Housing Works Bookstore Café: 212-966-0466, X1104 or Thanhauser@housingworks.org.

HOW TO FIND US:
Housing Works Bookstore Café

126 Crosby Street (one block east of Broadway between Houston and Prince)

Subway: W, R to Prince; B, D, F, V to Broadway/Lafayette; 6 to Bleecker
General Information: (212) 334-3324
Housing Works Bookstore Café Fighting AIDS One Book At A Time

Housing Works Bookstore Café is an independent cultural center that offers patrons a unique opportunity to join the fight against AIDS and homelessness. Arts-based philanthropy in practice, we allow visitors to make a difference simply by buying or donating books; eating at our cafe; coming to concerts, readings, and special events; or volunteering for our staff.

We are a non-profit organization that relies entirely on donations to stock our store and volunteers to run it. All proceeds directly benefit our parent organization, Housing Works, Inc., the nation’s largest minority-controlled AIDS service provider. Housing Works provides housing, healthcare, job training, and advocacy for New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. As an activist organization, we are committed to implementing the systemic changes necessary to ensure that AIDS and public health policies are sound in concept and equitable in administration.

*New* short fiction: Generations by Evans Kinyua

Evans Kinyua studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and also holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He is the author of Flight From Fate.

Generations by Evans Kinyua

Independent book shops on the rise in South Africa

A recent article in the UK's Guardian newspaper chronicled "the return of the independent bookshop" - a trend in that country that would seem to defy the likes of Tesco, the supermarket giant that has begun stocking books in its aisles. In South Africa, it's more a case of "the rise of the independent bookshop", because, while secondhand stores have always formed part of the local bookselling landscape, independent shops that sell new books have traditionally been far and few between. But two new businesses in Cape Town are challenging this state of affairs.

The "A is for Apple" children's bookstore and "Kalk Bay Books" opened within weeks of each other and have this much in common: their determined-to-succeed owners have taken among the most visible retail spaces in town. But both Kelly Silberman and Ann Donald, the stores' respective proprietors, recognize that good position alone doesn't guarantee success. Faced with the kind of overheads that comprise the new-book retail game, they've concentrated on emphasizing the "lifestyle" experience that small bookshops, done properly, can offer to entice consumers through their doors.

Plenty of local literature and books on Cape Town

Having been duly lured inside, they find: comfy couches and a stack of "New York Review of Books" within reach; plenty of local literature and books on Cape Town; a notice of an upcoming reading; and, in the slightly-out-of-focus background, rows upon rows of books that seem to generate a quiet warmth. "Kalk Bay Books" is all about the discrete, personal pleasure of reading.

"A is for Apple", on the other hand, is all about chat and sharing - beginning with the exclamations of pleasure customers make upon discovering that they can draw in crayon on the tables. This is a "destination bookshop" whose aim, says Silberman, is to create a space that appeals to both parent - especially mother - and child. Silberman surrounds her "core proposition" of selling the widest variety of children's books around with fun and relaxation: adults can sip coffee while their kids find a new favourite read; the bookshop throws birthday parties; and did we mention that you can draw on the tables?

Having put the finishing touches on their "lifestyle"-oriented environments, Silberman and Donald now face the task of realizing enough business from their target clientele to ensure their bookshops' sustainability. For Donald, one pleasant surprise during this phase has been the support her enterprise has received from local distributors. "Major warehousers like Booksite have helped a great deal," says Donald, who notes that the barriers to running an independent shop for new books would be almost insurmountably high, were it not for some flexibility in wholesale pricing structures.

If distributors are willing to work with independents to help them flourish, then readers may be the most pleasantly surprised of all, as this is likely to encourage more book havens like "A is for Apple" and "Kalk Bay Books" to rise up in South Africa in the years ahead.

Written by Ben Williams

Cape Town Book Fair main programme announced

THE CONTROVERSIAL, THE CLEVER AND THE QUIRKY

Controversial biographer Ronald Suresh Roberts, quirky poet Lebo Mashile, best-selling writers John van de Ruit, Wilbur Smith, Anthony Horowitz and Marian Keyes, award-winning authors Kiran Desai and Shaun Johnson, presenter and playwright Fiona Coyne plus politicians, academics and publishers are all showcased on the Main Programme at the 2007 Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF).

A comprehensive and diverse roster of events will take place between 10am and 5pm from June 16-19 in lecture halls and at exhibitor stands in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, with the 2007 CTBF theme "More than Black on White" forming the springboard for many of the scheduled discussions and debates. Four major book collections, on Nelson Mandela, Wine, 25 Best South African Reads and Science Fiction and Fantasy, will also feature associated activities ranging from wine-tasting to dialogue sessions with, amongst others, Professor Njabulo Ndebele and Ahmed Kathrada.

The CTBF also hosts the prestigious Sunday Times literary awards, which are the richest literary prizes in South Africa with R75 000 going to each winner. The finalists in the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award - John Allen (Rabble-Rouser for Peace), Glynis Clacherty (The Suitcase Stories), Denis Hirson (White Scars), Fred Khumalo (Touch My Blood) and Ivan Vladislavic (Portrait with Keys) - will be interviewed by Sunday Times Books Editor Michele Magwood pre-award ceremony, as will the contenders for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize - Imraan Coovadia (Green-Eyed Thieves), Shaun Johnson (The Native Commissioner), Christopher Hope (My Mother's Lovers), Lewis Nkosi (Mandela's Ego), and Marlene van Niekerk (Agaat).

"We have tried to strike a balance between literary and academic events, and more mainstream activities that will appeal to a wide range of readers," says Vanessa Badroodien, Director of the CTBF. "We received excellent feedback from visitors, trade delegations, booksellers and publishers after last year's event. Using this information, we have created a programme that should offer value to everybody who attends, whether they are wanting to engage in serious discussion about the quality of local literature or be entertained by an author such as Tom Eaton."

The scope of the programme is reflected in the some of the titles of the events: "Where Wilbur Reads Tonight" features popular fiction writer Wilbur Smith; "Islam, Feminism and art of novel writing" has authors Rayda Jacobs and Imraan Coovadia in discussion; "The importance of Memory and Dialogue using the life and values of Nelson Mandela as an example" features Verne Harris and Dr Mothomang Diaho; and "Poetic Licence: Is poetry the new black?" has various poets in discussion including Lebo Mashile and Gabeba Baderoon.

The CTBF has doubled its floor space this year to accommodate the increase in exhibitors and expected visitors. In addition, larger lecture halls and presentation rooms have been booked. Visitors are advised to arrive an hour before each scheduled event. Students with valid student cards and children accompanied by an adult will be admitted for free.

The CTBF is a joint venture between the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Publishing Association of South Africa (PASA), with headline sponsorship from the Sunday Times. Last year more than 26 000 people visited the fair, which hosted 418 exhibitors from 36 countries and attracted 2000 international trade visitors.

* The Cape Town Book Fair will take place in the Cape Town International Convention Centre From June 16 to June 19, 2007. The fair will host exhibitions by publishers from Africa, Europe the United Kingdom and elsewhere. More than 300 events including readings, book launches, panel discussions and seminars will take place during the Fair. Tickets are on sale at computicket.com.

Telephone 021 418 5493 or visit http://www.capetownbookfair.com/

Franschhoek Literary Festival misses the mark

If, as director Christopher Hope says, "basically the aim behind the [Franschhoek Literary Festival is] to encourage young writers and young writing", why is it held in an exclusive and distant place like Franschhoek? Why not Muizenberg or Mowbray, which young writers and book lovers may more easily get to?

Why the exorbitant fees to attend events and dinners? How many "youngsters" were in attendance? Looking closely at Ben William's photographs of the audience members on book.co.za, one sees mostly middle-aged white people. Not surprising, given the questions of exclusivity, or is this merely a reflection of the book-buying public given the general unaffordibility of books in this country?

Curling up with a good eBook

It has long been predicted that traditional books are about to be replaced by little machines on which you can download any novel you fancy. But the technology has never really been up to the job - until now. Here Andrew Marr, who treasures his smelly, beautiful library of real books, spends a month with one of the new gadgets

The Guardian, Friday May 11, 2007

Read the article here:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/ebooks/story/0,,2077277,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=10

Oshun Books Mother's Day event

Oshun Books is holding a special Mother's Day event at the stunning Deer Park Café in Vredehoek next Friday morning. If you've been wondering what to get that special mom for Mother's day, this brunch with two of our smartest, funniest authors will be a real treat.

Tertia Albertyn is the author of 'So Close: Infertile and addicted to hope' and mom to Adam and Kate. Sarah Bullen is the author of 'Hey Baby! The hip new mom's guide that's all about you' and mom to Ruby and Rodrik.

Tickets are R100 for the talk and brunch. RSVP to Sukeena at sukeenap@oshunbooks.co.za.

Short lists announced for Sunday Times Literary Awards

The short lists for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction were announced in Johannesburg last night. With prizes of R75 000 each for the winners, these prestigious awards are the richest on the continent. Convener Michele Magwood pointed out that because the Sunday Times has upped the number of entries that publishers can submit, judges received a record number of books to consider.

The short-listed works are:

Fiction Prize:
1. Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk, translated by Michiel Heyns, Tafelberg /Jonathan Ball
2. My Mother's Lovers by Christopher Hope, Atlantic Books
3. Mandela's Ego by Lewis Nkosi, Umuzi
4. The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson, Penguin Books
5. Green-Eyed Thieves by Imraan Coovadia, Umuzi

Honorary Award: Memorandum: a story with paintings by Marlene van Niekerk and Adriaan van Zyl, translated by Michiel Heyns and published by Human & Rousseau.

Alan Paton Award:
1. Rabble-Rouser For Peace - The Authorised Biography of Desmond Tutu by John Allen, Rider Books
2. Portrait With Keys - Jo'burg & What-What by Ivan Vladislavi*, Umuzi
3. The Suitcase Stories - Refugee Children Reclaim Their Identities by Glynis Clacherty, Double Storey
4. White Scars - On reading and rites of passage by Denis Hirson, Jacana Media
5. Touch My Blood - The Early Years by Fred Khumalo, Umuzi

Honorary Award: Scorched - South Africa's Changing Climate by Leonie S Joubert, Wits University Press

Said Michele Magwood: "It was not only the longest but the strongest list of entries ever for the Fiction Prize, but the judges distilled them into a short list relatively quickly. There was little or no dissent at all. Unlike last year, there are no surprises in terms of unknowns - all are established, experienced writers, and this shows in the deeply assured quality of the works."

The debate for the Alan Paton award, she says, "was longer and particularly fierce this year. Most of the discussion centred on the criterion 'the illumination of truthfulness', and how this is defined." The judges were impressed, she says, with the new forms that non-fiction is taking, as demonstrated in such books as White Scars and Portrait with Keys.

The Paton jury opted for an Honorary Award for Scorched for entering the new territory of science journalism and its skill in popularising an often-inaccessible field.

The Honorary Award in the fiction competition was given to Memorandum for its challenging of the conventions of the traditional novel, thematically and in form. The Chair of the panel, Professor Andries Oliphant, noted, "Constant experimentation is vital for the renewal of the novel."

The judging panels will meet again in May to decide on the winners. They will be announced on June 16 at a gala dinner at the Cape Town Book Fair.

Digital archive for SA books launched

Digital books are not new to the global market, but South Africa has yet to catch up. This is soon to change as 24.com, a division of Naspers, has launched a project that will see the creation of a digital book library. Through this initiative, the bulk of SA published books will be available in digital format in a few years’ time.

Channel manager Johann van Tonder believes that books as we know them today will not disappear in our life time.

“To the contrary,” he says, “technology has created wonderful opportunities for making books more accessible, even reviving certain titles. Our books need to be conserved for future generations, who will demand them in multiple formats. The digital format is clearly the answer.”

Full-text searchability will enable the public to search for any words which appear anywhere in the text of any book. According to Van Tonder, a longer term objective is to facilitate delivery of books in a number of new ways. “But for now, our focus is getting hold of all books ever published in South Africa and ensuring that our library is as extensive as possible,” he says.

Public can assist

With only 41% of all ISBN registered books published by conventional publishers, the rest of the books need to be sourced in different ways. Van Tonder is of the opinion that the public can greatly assist with tracking these books, especially books that are out of print and very old.

“We want to appeal to all South Africans to notify us if they are in possession of books that are not readily available anymore. Contributions will boost the creation of a lasting archive for generations to come and ensure maximum exposure of the South African literary legacy to a growing internet audience.” Books should preferably be duplicate copies as they would in most cases not be returned.

“Rights holders of books should also contact us to explore opportunities,” says Van Tonder. He emphasises that publishers and authors retain full rights to all books that are digitised.

Publishers, authors and book owners who believe that they can make a contribution to a digital library for South Africa can contact Shaakirah on +27 (0)21 481 8300 or email dili@media24.com.

101 books to read before you die

In a celebration of reading and the upcoming Cape Town Book Fair, national book retailer Exclusive Books is calling on all listologists and book lovers to consider their favourite reads and to assist them in compiling a definitive list of 101 books to read before you die. To find out more go to www.exclusivebooks.com

Come to the Franschhoek Literary Festival

Some wonderful writers coming:

Helen Brain (children's book author)
Andrew Brown (novelist from Cape Town)
Justin Cartwright (South African novelist based in the UK)
Finuala Dowling (poet from Cape Town)
Gus Ferguson (you all know)
Mike van Graan (playwright)
Jenny Hobbs (novelist based here in Franschhoek)
Christopher Hope (South African novelists based in France)
Siri Hustvedt (bestselling novelist from the US)
Fred Khumalo (journalist and author from Jozi)
Rustum Kozain (poet based in Cape Town)
Rian Malan (journalist and novelist from Jozi)
Lebo Mashile (poet and TV personality from Jozi, winner of the 2006 Noma Award)
Niq Mhlongo (novelist from Jozi)
Mike Nicol (novelist based in cape Town)
Marlene van Niekerk (novelist based in Stellenbosch)
Nick Norman (geologist based in Franschhoek, author of Geological Journeys)
Margie Orford (crime fiction novelist based in cape Town)
Max du Preez (journalist and author)
Jancis Robinson (wine writer from the UK)
John van de Ruit (bestselling author of Spud)
Ivan Vladislavic (novelist from Jozi)
Mary Watson (winner of the 2006 Caine Prize)
Chris van Wyk (novelist from Jozi)
Zapiro (you all know)

You can see the full line up at www.flf.co.za. It would be great to see any of you over the festival (11-12-13 May) and if you know of anyone else who would be interested in coming along then please let them know about it.

Caine Prize shortlist 2007 announced

Nigeria features prominently in the eighth Caine Prize for African Writing, producing three of the five shortlisted writers for this year’s competition. But with entries received from North, South, East and West Africa, the Caine Prize has once again proven its pan-African outreach. The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday, 9 July.

The 2007 shortlist comprises:

Uwem Akpan (Nigeria), ‘My Parents Bedroom’ The New Yorker June 12, 2006

Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda), ‘Jambula Tree’ from ‘African Love Stories’ Ayebia Clarke Publishing 2006

E.C Osondu (Nigeria) ‘Jimmy Carter’s Eyes’, AGNI Fiction Online 2006

Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa) ‘Bad Places’, New Contrast vol 31 no4 Spring 2003

Ada Udechukwu (Nigeria) ‘Night Bus’, The Atlantic Monthly, August 2006

In addition the judges highly commended Kenyan Billy Kahora’s ‘Treadmill Love’ from ‘The Obituary Tango’ Jacana/New Internationalist 2006.

“The range of this year's shortlist confirms that writers are testing the limits of what subjects they can address. From modern folk tales to social alienation, violent crime and sexual orientation. It is a welcome development”, commented Jamal Majhoub, the Chair for the 2007 judging panel. Jamal, who was born in London and bought up in Khartoum, has published seven novels, which have been translated into many languages. His numerous awards include the Mario Vargos Llosa Premio NH de Relatos in 2006 and he has previously been shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2004 with The Obituary Tango, from Wasafiri.

The judging panel this year also includes Kenyan academic, critic and writer Dr Wangui wa Goro, award winning novelist Delia Jarett-Macauley, South African poet and novelist Jonty Driver and former Zed Books Managing Editor, Robert Molteno.

As announced earlier this year, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize, known as the ‘African Booker’, will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC, as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

Last year’s winner was South African Mary Watson, for Jungfrau, from ‘Moss’, Kwela Books, 2004. Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe commented that Jungfrau was “a powerfully written narrative that works skilfully through a child’s imagination to suggest a world of insights about familial and social relationships in the new South Africa”. Mary is now working on her first novel in Cape Town.

Other previous winners include 2005’s winner S.A.Afolabi from Nigeria for Monday Morning from Wasafiri (2004), later published in his first collection of short stories, A Life Elsewhere, his first novel Goodbye Lucille is due to be published this summer. Helon Habila, Caine Prize 2001 winner, described as a ‘major novelist in the making’, has just published his second novel, Measuring Time. Binyavanga Wainaina, who won the Caine Prize in 2002 is the founding editor of the literary magazine, Kwani? and is currently working on a memoir which is to be published by Granta Books.

This year the short listed writers will be reading from their work at the Royal Over-Seas League on Friday, 6 July at 7pm and at the South Bank Centre literary festival on Sunday, 8 July at 8:15 pm. There will also be a seminar at the Institute for English Studies, Senate House, University of London, on Wednesday, 11 July at 1.30pm.

Man Booker winner Kiran Desai coming to South Africa

The Inheritance of Loss was the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006. It is a brilliant, bittersweet family saga and a powerful reflection of modern times that will broaden your mind and break your heart. Kiran Desai will be in South Africa from the 15 - 23 June. To request an interview with Kiran, contact Kate Robinson at kate.robinson@za.penguingroup.com or on 011 327 3550.

The Inheritance of Loss (PB)
Kiran Desai R110
ISBN: 9780141027289

SAFM interviewing Henrietta Rose-Innes, winner of 2007 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award

SAFM will be interviewing Henrietta Rose-Innes, the winner of the 2007 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award at about 3.15 p.m this coming Sunday, 6th May. The SA PEN website is now up and running. It is currently a work in progress so we would welcome any comments. Go to www.sapen.co.za to see photos of the launch of African Pens.

*New* poetry: Black History by Tanisha Alexander

The poet Phenomenally was born Tanisha Alexander in Wichita, KS 1981 and now resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tanisha’s journey through poetry started on her MySpace page entitled Phenomenally where readers inspired her to release her poetic writing to a bigger audience.

Black History - Tanisha Alexander

HSBC/SA PEN Literary Awards announced

The South African Centre of International PEN (SA PEN), in partnership with HSBC Bank plc and New Africa Books, is delighted to announce the winners of the 2007 HSBC / SA PEN Literary Award.

Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee selected the short story Poison by Henrietta Rose-Innes as the winner of the first prize. Coetzee described it as “a story about an imagined ecological disaster to Cape Town refracted through the eyes of a young woman caught up in the exodus from the city.” He added in his Judge’s report: “The behaviour of South Africans under conditions of stress is seen with sympathy and reported in a commendably indirect, understated way; the final effect of the story is surprisingly buoyant.”

Rose-Innes, a Cape Town writer, is currently a Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude artists’ residency in Stuttgart, Germany. A student of archaeology and biological anthropology, she has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and has had two novels published: Shark’s Egg in 2000 and The Rock Alphabet in 2004. In 1996, Rose-Innes won the Cosmopolitan/Vita Short Story competition and in 2001 Shark’s Egg was shortlisted for the M-Net Book Prize.

Petina Gappah, a Zimbabwean writer living in Geneva, Switzerland, received the second prize for her short story At the Sound of the Last Post. Coetzee described the story as “a darkly amusing satirical story about Mugabe’s Zimbabwe tackled with great authority.” Gappah also received a highest mention from JM Coetzee for Rotten Row, another short story she submitted. These were the second and third stories she had ever written.

Gappah works as a lawyer for an organisation that helps developing countries apply and administer WTO trade agreements. Since she entered the HSBC/SA PEN Award, she has published two other stories and is finalising what she hopes will be her first published novel.

Stanley Kenani was awarded the third prize for For Honour, “a deceptively simple story that finds a new and creative way of approaching the tragic subject matter of AIDS.”

Kenani is a Malawian writer and performance poet, who won his first literary award, a national UNESCO essay competition, at 18. The prize was a scholarship to complete high school. While studying for an accountancy degree at the University of Malawi, Kenani won additional prizes for short stories and essays and published one of his short stories in the BBC Focus on Africa magazine. He is president of the Malawi Writers’ Union and acting treasurer of the Pan African Writers’ Association.

J M Coetzee also gave highest mentions to The Day of the Surgical Colloquium by Gill Schierhout and Safe Home by Nadia Davids and singled out five additional short stories that he said would merit inclusion in any anthology drawn from the entries submitted. These are: Tears by Sean Mitchell, Buffalo Panting at the Moon by Alexandra Smith, Archives of the Hangman by Claire Gaul, The Picture of James Plaatje by Fiona Moolla and Animal Farm by Mehluli Nxumalo.

In his Judge’s report, Coetzee commended the standard of the 2007 entries, saying it was “notably higher than in 2006 and 2005.”Entrants confront the unhappier aspects of present-day society with a commendable degree of moral and creative courage. The best of these young writers are on a par with their coevals in the West, and have in addition the priceless advantage that the material they work with is of burning social, political, and human importance.”

Coetzee also praised the organisers of the award and their enlightened patron, HSBC Bank plc, for fostering a literary culture in the region. “The fact that southern Africa can mount a literary competition of its own to be mentioned in the same breath as an Africa-wide competition like the Caine Prize, and can call forth year after year bodies of high-quality entries, should encourage educators and the wider community of culturally aware citizens that the literary culture of the region is, if not flourishing, at least putting forth buds. For the part it has played in fostering this culture, PEN is to be commended - not only PEN South Africa but PEN in its wider embodiment across the continent.”

The HSBC / SA PEN Literary Award was established in 2005 to encourage new creative writers in the SADC region and offer them an opportunity to launch a literary career. The award targets writers under the age of 40 in the short story genre.

The 2007 award received 303 entries from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The three winning stories and 28 others that were shortlisted have been published by New Africa Books in the final of a series of three volumes of new creative writing, entitled African Pens - New Writing from southern Africa 2007.

In a sponsorship arrangement which makes this one of the most financially rewarding literary competitions in southern Africa, HSBC Bank plc has provided cash prizes totaling US$10 000 annually for the three years. The winner of the award receives $5000 and those placed second and third receive $3000 and $2000 respectively.

The process to select the winners is undertaken by an editorial board comprising prominent writers and publishers and it is entirely anonymous - scripts are identified only by number and no reader or judge is aware of the authors’ identities at any stage. After each script is read by three different readers, the editorial board presents its short list to JM Coetzee who chooses the three winning contributions.

International PEN, the literary organisation with which SA PEN is affiliated, was founded in 1921 to advance the cause of literature and defend free expression. International PEN has 141 centres throughout the world and has undertaken to publicise the New Writing from southern Africa series in its global journal, PEN INTERNATIONAL.

The full text of JM Coetzee’s comments is published in African Road.

SADC countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

2007 HSBC PEN shortlist

The South African Centre of International PEN (SA PEN), in partnership with HSBC Bank plc and New Africa Books, is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2007 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award.

Kyne Nislev Bernstorff – Going Nowhere
Elizabeth Bishop - Supermarket
Renée Bonorchis – The Summer House
Clare Butcher – Aerial Shots
Malcolm Cumming – The Bam’Žbo By the Dam
Carol-Anne Davids – Nostalgia
Nadia Davids – Safe Home
Petina Gappah – Rotten Row and At the Sound of the Last Post
Claire Gaul – Archives of the Hangman
Karen Jennings – Sarah Begins
Stanley Kenani – For Honour
Deborah Klein – Men and Mermaids
Morne Malan – Jason’Žs Kiss
Steven Marston – The Rebound
Matthew Mbanga – We were meant to live for so much more
Linda McCullogh – How to become a god in three easy steps:
Sean Mitchell – Tears
Christopher Mlalazi – Broken Wings
Fiona Fatima Moolla – The Picture of James Plaatje
Mehluli Nxumalo – Animal Farm
Lee Olivier – Do you have a heart?
Vreniker Pather – Ninema and The Old Man and the Oyster
Henrietta Rose-Innes – Poison
Michelle Sacks – Chronicles of a naked heart
Gill Schierhout – The Day of the Surgical Colloquium Hosted by the Far East Rand Hospital
Alexandra Smith – Buffalo Panting at the Moon
Karlien van der Schyff – Trojan Horse
Richard Walne – The Paint Collector
Carolyn Weir - Collage

These short stories will all be published by New Africa Books in the third volume of new creative writing, entitled African Pens - New Writing from southern Africa 2007. The winners, selected by Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee, will be announced in Cape Town on 24 April 2007 when African Pens – New Writing from southern Africa 2007 is released.

The HSBC/SA PEN award was established in 2005 to encourage young creative writers in the SADC region and offer them an opportunity to launch a literary career. The award targets writers under the age of 40 in the short story genre.

The 2007 award attracted 303 entries from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In a sponsorship arrangement which makes this one of the most financially rewarding literary competitions in southern Africa, HSBC Bank plc, will provide cash prizes totalling US$10 000. The winner of the award will receive $5 000 and those placed second and third will receive $3 000 and $2 000 respectively.

The process to select the winners is undertaken by an editorial board comprising prominent writers and publishers and it is entirely anonymous –Ž no reader or judge is aware of the authors’ names at any stage. After each script is read by three different readers, the editorial board presents its selection to the final judge, J M Coetzee, who chooses the three winning contributions.

SA PEN president, Anthony Fleischer, says: “We aim to promote the series widely in southern Africa in an attempt to encourage young writers to express the vitality and diversity of our new society. We are looking for creative material of universal literary appeal which will make compelling reading.”

International PEN, the literary organisation to which SA PEN is affiliated, has 141 centres throughout the world and has undertaken to publicise the new series in its global journal PEN INTERNATIONAL.

World Book Day 2007 - what's happening around the country

HOOKED ON BOOKS

A PROJECT FOR WORLD BOOK DAY 2007 AND BEYOND

For the second year in a row, the University of Pretoria, and the Tshwane Community Library and Information Services are celebrating World Book Day on the UP Campus.

This year, the celebrations will centre around an innovative community project: HOOKED ON BOOKS. This is a project to be launched in aid of the distribution and donation of books to specifically address access to books in South Africa. It will be a cooperative initiative of the Publishing Studies Programme (Department of Information Science), the Department of Visual Arts, and the Tshwane Library and Information Services.

Although books form a crucial part of our daily lives as educators and publishers, it is easy to forget that the majority of South Africans have neither books nor access to facilities that allow them to experience the wonderful world of books.

BOEKEHUIS invitation

Bookshop for South African and World Literature BOEKEHUIS & Ster Kinekor invite you to a discussion with the filmmaker Helena Nogueira.

She will speak with Paul Boekkooi, film and theatre critic about the making of the movie, Ingrid Jonker - Her Lives and Time..

This movie is to be released on 26th April at both Rosebank and V & A Cinema Nouveau
Discussion at: BOEKEHUIS,
Cnr. Lothbury and Fawley streets, Auckland Park
When: Saturday 21 April 2007, at 12:30
RSVP: by Thurs 19/04 on
011 482 3609 or boekehuis@vanschaik.com

Special offer: Boekehuis & Ster Kinekor offer 5 double movie tickets to 5 lucky winners who attend this session of Saturday Voices on 21 April..

About the movie:

INGRID JONKER: HER LIVES & TIME is written, edited and directed by Helena Nogueira and

Produced by Shan Moodley

It features amongst others interviews with André Brink, Jan Rabie, Marjorie Wallace, Sir Laurence van der Post, James Mathews, Peter Clarke, Michael Cope and Simone Venter (daughter of Ingrid Jonker).

About Ingrid Jonker:

Ingrid Jonker (born 19 September 1933 ) was a South African poet. Although she wrote in Afrikaans, her poems have been widely translated into other languages. Ingrid Jonker has reached iconic status in South Africa and is often called the South African Sylvia Plath, owing to the intensity of her work and the tragic course of her turbulent life. Her work has also been compared to that of Anne Sexton.

South Africa lost a gifted and sensitive poet when, at the age of 31, Ingrid Jonker ended her own life on 19 July 1965.

The advanced ideas inherent in Ingrid Jonker's poems have made her a recognized literary figure internationally, with her poems being studied, translated and published in many languages including English, German, French, Dutch, Polish, Hindi and Zulu. The collected works of Jonker, including several short stories and a play, were published in 1975 and re-issued in 1983 and 1994.

Former President Nelson Mandela, in commenting on Jonker's poem Die Kind (The Child), which he read out in full in his inaugural State of the Nation address to Parliament in May 1994, said, "... in this glorious vision, she
instructs that our endeavours must be about the liberation of the woman, the emancipation of the man and the liberty of the child". Of Jonker herself, Mandela said that: "She was both a poet and a South African. She was both an Afrikaner and an African. She was both an artist and a human being. In the midst of despair, she celebrated hope. Confronted by death, she asserted the beauty of life."

Ingrid Jonker's sensitive, humane and forward-looking perspectives have made her a literary icon of a whole new generation of Afrikaners and South Africans, who have re-discovered her relevance in a free and democratic South Africa.

KZN Literary Tourism invitation to launch of Grey Street literary trail

KZN Literary Tourism is pleased to invite you to the launch of the Grey Street literary trail. Join us on the 9th May from 6-8pm at the Supernova theatre at Suncoast Casino for a cocktail evening as we celebrate the Grey Street writers and their work. Writers in attendance will be Imraan Coovadia, Phyllis Naidoo, Ravi Govender and Aziz Hassim. The Surialanga Dance Company will close the evening off with their unique fusion between traditional African and classical Indian dance.

Please RSVP by the 31st April to events@literarytourism.co.za in order to book your tickets.

Centre for the Book invitation to lunch-time book event

In celebration of World Book Day 2007, the Centre for the Book invites you to a lunch-time book event!

MAXINE CASE IN CONVERSATION

Maxine Case was born in Cape Town into a family of readers and writers. She studied advertising and completed an IMM diploma. She now works at NB Publishers as the marketing and promotions co-ordinator. “All We Have Left Unsaid,” her debut novel, was published by Kwela Books in 2006 and has recently been awarded the 2007 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book in Africa.

Monday 23 April 2007
13h00 Centre for the Book
62 Queen Victoria Street Cape Town

RSVP: Mark Espin @ 021 423 2669 or mark.espin@nlsa.ac.za Mark Espin

Projects Co-ordinator Centre for the Book
62 Queen Victoria Street Cape Town 8001 PO Box 15254 Vlaeberg 8018
021 423 2669 tel
021 424 1484 fax www.centreforthebook.org.za The Centre for the Book is a specialist unit of the National Library

Invitation to HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award

*New* short fiction: The Café by Byron Loker

Byron Loker doesn't "do" lunch. His debut collection of short stories, New Swell, is published by Double Storey Books.

The Café by Byron Loker

Also published in the latest issue of New Contrast.

Join Kalk Bay Books and Umuzi for a glass of wine with author Nicholas Ashby

Join Kalk Bay Books and Umuzi for a glass of wine while author Nicholas Ashby reads to us from his novel, Time Pips.

Time Pips tells the story of Matthews, a boy born to a South African laundry maid and a German actor and radio broadcaster in the first half of the 20th century. Matthews’ life is full of adventures that lead him to places such as North Africa and Diego Suarez, an Indian Ocean island town, where he finds his true love, Heiata. Time Pips is a whimsical tale of romance, religion and destiny.

Date: Friday, April 20 Time: 6:00 for 6:30pm RSVP: by Thursday 19 April Tel: 021-788-2266 or e-mail: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za

Canopic Jar #18 is now on-line and ready for viewing.

1. The Big News for the coming summer is the Canopic Publishing release of Leatherneck Sea Stories: Recollections of Marines, Korea, and the Corps of the 1950s by Dave Easton. There will be more about this title forthcoming in the next Canopic Spam offering, as well as at www.canopicpublishing.com.

2. Canopic Jar #18 is now on-line and ready for viewing. The Jar's ever-widening audience is once again treated to poetry & prose from a fine array of talented authors from around the globe. Web designer and co-editor Rethabile Masilo continues to sharpen the site with each issue, and his linguistic skills and multi-cultural sense of poetics expands the boundaries of the Jar with each posting. Check it out at www.canopicjar.com.

The Jar is and has always been dedicated to being an open forum for artists at any stage of their career. If you poke through the archives you'll find material from award-winning authors (at least a couple can even claim to have penned a 'bestseller' or two) in addition to first-timers wanting to try out their wares. Most contributors are somewhere in the vast between with the rest of us, and it all points to the old artistic ideal of doing it for the sake of doing it. So pass the word and send in those poems, stories, essays, fragments, bits, and pieces of any genre or subject. We'll gladly give it a read.

3. And don't forget to visit the Canopic Bookstore and buy a book! Free shipping within the US , and anybody who receives this email is entitled to a 2-for-1 sale if you use the CCNow button to make a secure, on-line purchase—or just send an old-fashioned check if you prefer. (Just like in the real world, the lower priced item of the two will be the free one.) Just let me know the 2nd title and it's yours.

Call for children's stories and poems in African languages

Stories Across Africa (StAAf) a core project of the African Academy of Languages, the official language agency of the AU, is pan African project intending to:

* develop and support the use of African languages in print;
* support mother tongue based bilingual education in Africa;
* stimulate and support the African publishing industry and African literary and visual artists to create and foster the use of children’s literature;
* begin to create a common store of written children’s literature for African children;
* support possibilities for reading for enjoyment as part of literacy learning and development.

In collaboration with a local publisher from each of Southern, West, Central, East and North Africa, StAAf is publishing three anthologies of writing for children:
* Early Childhood (0-8),
* Middle Childhood (9-12) and
* Teenagers (13+)

We invite you to submit stories and poems in any African language (with a summary or translation in English, French or Portuguese) or any of the AU official languages. Please follow the following guide (suggested maximum words per submission) with respect to length:

ECD: 800 words
Middle: 1200 words
Teen: 2000 words

The selection process will be made by the StAAf steering committee and their decision will be final. Authors of submissions which are selected for inclusion in one of the anthologies will be paid a permission fee for the use of their writing. Authors of manuscripts selected for publication will be informed before the end of October 2007.

Selected stories and poems will:

* arise from and give an African point of view;
* have definite literary merit;
* reflect diversity in terms of gender, ethnicity etc;
* challenge discrimination;
* include humour and avoid being didactic and preachy;
* include not only ‘problem literature’ but fantasy and experimental, non-linear texts too.

Selection issues to be considered include:

* Style: How is the story or poem written? Are the ideas easily understandable? Is it readable for the target age group?
* Translation: Will it be possible to adapt this poem or story into a variety of languages used on the African continent?
* Theme: Is the theme relevant for the age group? Will it have continent-wide appeal? Is the theme interesting? Does it portray positive roles for the readers? Is it gender sensitive?
* Attractiveness: Is the story or poem appealing to the target audience? If there is humour? Is its appeal continent-wide? Does the language attract the reader?
* Clarity: Is the rhythm, diction and syntax clear and appealing? Does the language contribute to transmitting the message and attracting/ entertaining the audience? Is the use of language original and lively?

Submission Details

Submission deadline: 30 July 2007
Please submit stories and poems by post or email.

If the story has already been published, please submit a copy of the title and imprint pages.

Please make and keep a copy of any story you submit for yourself. StAAf will not return stories to the sender.

No story will be accepted unless it is accompanied by a completed submission form.

Please submit entries to:

Carole Bloch
StAAf Central Co-ordinator
Room 14, Arts Block,
PRAESA, UCT
Private Bag Rondebosch 7700
Cape Town
South Africa
Email: carole.bloch@uct.ac.za
Tel: 0027 21 6503589
Fax: 0027 21 6503027

A message from Christopher Hope, director of the Franschhoek Literary Festival

The Franschhoek Literary Festival is something very special for me. I have spent, over the years, many days at literary and writers’ festivals in Britain, Europe, the US and Canada. And it began to seem to me that there was room for something similar in South Africa, a get-together quite different from other arts festivals that take place in this country. The aim of the FLF is to put writers in the front rank, to give them the space, and the means, to come to Franschhoek, to stay in the town, to be paid a small fee and, above all, to be appreciated. I wanted to make a place where writers, who often have to struggle hard to be published, to be read, to be heard, can meet and mix with colleagues from across South Africa and from around the world.

In short, the Festival I wanted to see would be the intimate, interesting, friendly meeting place for those who enjoy the shapes of words and the magic they make – readers, publishers, journalists; for all who wrote, read and loved books. I had in mind a lively and literate street party, in a convivial town, where everyone can fi nd a seat, a meal, a glass of wine and a good book or three. That is what Franschhoek does best and that is what this Literary Festival is about.

Our ultimate aim is to use whatever we may raise in the Festival towards establishing a new community library in Franschhoek. But what I wish most is for the Franschhoek Literary Festival to back up our writers, most particularly young writers, by making them the heart of the matter. Writers give us pictures of ourselves, which we may love or hate – but without our poets, novelists and dramatists how will we know who we are?

Welcome to the very fi rst Franschhoek Literary Festival.

Christopher Hope

Director

Download the programme here

Call for volunteers for Centre for the Book stand at the Cape Town Book Fair

The Centre for the Book needs book-lovers, reading activists and passionate writers to volunteer to work at the Centre for the Book stand at the CT International Book Fair from 16th June to 19th June.

If you are interested in volunteering please contact Colleen Higgs at colleen.higgs@nlsa.ac.za

You would need to come to a training session, you would get a meal ticket and free entrance to the Book Fair for the day that you work there as well as a chance to participate in one of the most exciting bookish events of the year.