Innovative publishing director Arthur Attwell is hosting a seminar on self-publishing for beginners. The lecture will explain how publishing and self-publishing works, the three basic areas of self-publishing (production, marketing and distribution) and what the author’s and production company’s areas of responsibilities are.
This is an opportunity for authors and publishers alike to have their questions answered from a company that is pushing the envelope - don’t miss out!
Date: 16 September 2008
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Electric Book Works, 87 Station Road Observatory
Bookings: Please call Silma on 021 448 8336 or email info@mousehand.co.za
Cost: R200 p/p
Space is limited, so please respond soon.
Launch of The Nose by Margie Orford
Acclaimed crime writer Margie Orford has turned her hand to children's books, specifically to write a little book for her 8-year-old friend Jack. It's quirkily illustrated by Margie's husband Andrew Walton. And by 'little book', we mean very little. Seriously cute miniature. It was great fun to make this book for Margie, and we're inviting you to join her for the launch at the fabulous Book Lounge (cnr Roeland and Buitenkant, Cape Town) on Thursday 25 September at 5:30 for 6 pm.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award
Following the success of the HSBC/SA PEN Literary Awards, SA PEN announces a call for entries for the new PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award. Writers from African and SADC countries are invited to submit original, previously unpublished, English-language SHORT STORIES.
The best entries will be selected by an editorial board for inclusion in a book to be published next year, under the working title
“NEW WRITING FROM AFRICA”
Three prize winners will be selected by Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee
Prizes, given by John Studzinski, will be awarded:
£5 000, £3 000 and £2 000
Rules for submission of entries:
* Entrants must be citizens of an African or SADC* country.
* Stories, on any subject, must be in English; length should be 2 500
to 5 000 words.
* Entries must be previously unpublished. More than one entry may be
submitted.
* Entries must be typed, in double spacing, on one side of A4 paper.
Pages must be numbered and securely fastened together. Three copies must be
submitted.
* No name or address should appear on the typescript, but each page
must carry the title of the story. The identity of authors will not be
revealed to judges.
* A covering letter with the name, e-mail & postal address, contact
numbers, and photocopy of the ID of the entrant (as proof of citizenship)
must be included. Entrants may currently reside outside of Africa.
* Submission of entries implies adherence to all rules and conditions
of this award, including that of copyright.
* Closing date: 30th September 2008
* Send your entry to: PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award, P O Box 30327,
Tokai, 7966, Republic of South Africa. Fax and e-mail entries will not be
accepted.
*SADC COUNTRIES
Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
The best entries will be selected by an editorial board for inclusion in a book to be published next year, under the working title
“NEW WRITING FROM AFRICA”
Three prize winners will be selected by Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee
Prizes, given by John Studzinski, will be awarded:
£5 000, £3 000 and £2 000
Rules for submission of entries:
* Entrants must be citizens of an African or SADC* country.
* Stories, on any subject, must be in English; length should be 2 500
to 5 000 words.
* Entries must be previously unpublished. More than one entry may be
submitted.
* Entries must be typed, in double spacing, on one side of A4 paper.
Pages must be numbered and securely fastened together. Three copies must be
submitted.
* No name or address should appear on the typescript, but each page
must carry the title of the story. The identity of authors will not be
revealed to judges.
* A covering letter with the name, e-mail & postal address, contact
numbers, and photocopy of the ID of the entrant (as proof of citizenship)
must be included. Entrants may currently reside outside of Africa.
* Submission of entries implies adherence to all rules and conditions
of this award, including that of copyright.
* Closing date: 30th September 2008
* Send your entry to: PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award, P O Box 30327,
Tokai, 7966, Republic of South Africa. Fax and e-mail entries will not be
accepted.
*SADC COUNTRIES
Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Man Booker 2008 shortlist announced
Aravind Adiga, Sebastian Barry, Amitav Ghosh, Linda Grant, Philip Hensher and Steve Toltz are the six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008, the English-speaking world's most important literary award. The shortlist was announced by the chair of judges, Michael Portillo, at a press conference at Man Group plc offices in London today (Tuesday 9th September 2008).
The six shortlisted books were chosen from a longlist of 13 and are:
Author Title Publisher
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger Atlantic
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton
Michael Portillo, Chair of Judges, comments:
"The judges commend the six titles to readers with great enthusiasm. These novels are intensely readable, each of them an extraordinary example of imagination and narrative. These fine page-turning stories nonetheless raise highly thought-provoking ideas and issues. These books are in every case both ambitious and approachable."
The 2008 shortlist includes two first time novelists, Aravind Adiga and Steve Toltz. The six authors represent a broad geographical spread with two Indian authors, two English authors, an Australian author and an Irish author. The youngest on the list, at 34 years old, is Aravind Adiga. Sebastian Barry was shortlisted in 2005 for his novel A Long, Long Way, Linda Grant was longlisted in 2002 for her novel Still Here and Philip Hensher, once a Booker judge himself, was also longlisted in 2002 for his novel The Mulberry Empire.
The winner receives £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.
The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Michael Portillo, former MP and Cabinet Minister; Alex Clark, editor of Granta; Louise Doughty, novelist; James Heneage, founder of Ottakar's bookshops and Hardeep Singh Kohli, TV and radio broadcaster.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October at a dinner at the Guildhall, London. The announcement will be broadcast live on BBC One's 10 O'Clock News.
This year, the Man Booker Prize has exclusively partnered with mobile site GoSpoken to make extracts from the shortlisted books available to download free onto your mobile phone. They can either be read as text or listened to as audio. The extracts will be available from the moment the shortlist is announced by texting MBP to 60300. This is the first time that any book prize has used mobile technology to promote its shortlist.
On Monday 13th October, the eve of the winner announcement, the Southbank Centre in London will host an evening of readings and discussion with the 2008 shortlisted authors.
-ends-
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Atlantic Books, £12.99
Born in the heartland of India to the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram Halwai, the ‘White Tiger', dreams of escaping his life as a teashop worker turned chauffeur. Yet when his chance finally arrives and his eyes are opened to the revelatory city of New Delhi, Balram becomes caught between his instinct to be a loyal son and servant and his desire to better himself. As he passes through two different Indias on his journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success, he begins to realise how the Tiger might finally escape his cage, and he is not afraid to spill a little blood along the way.
Aravind Adiga was born in Madras on 23rd October 1974 and raised partly in Australia. He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities and is a former correspondent for TIME magazine in India. Adiga's articles have also appeared in publications such as the Financial Times, Independent and Sunday Times. He currently lives in Mumbai.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Karen Duffy on 020 7269 1621 or at KarenDuffy@groveatlantic.co.uk
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Faber and Faber, £16.99
Roseanne McNulty, perhaps nearing her one-hundredth birthday - no one is quite sure - faces an uncertain future as the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. She talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene in the weeks leading up to the closure. Told through their respective journals, the shocking story of Roseanne's family in 1930s Sligo emerges. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland. The Secret Scripture is the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment yet marked by passion and hope.
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin on 5th July 1955. He has written a number of plays and his novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne (2002) and A Long Long Way (2005) which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Dublin International Impac Prize. He has won, among other awards, the Irish-America Fund Literary Award, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize. He currently lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Kate Burton on 020 7465 7554 or at Kate.burton@faber.co.uk
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
John Murray, £18.99
Set just before the Opium Wars, this novel has at its heart an old slaving-ship, The Ibis and its crew, a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations.
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta on 11th July 1956 and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford. He has taught at a number of institutions, most recently Harvard, and written for many publications. His international bestseller, The Glass Palace was published in 2000. He currently divides his time between Calcutta, Goa and Brooklyn.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Nikki Barrow on 020 7873 6440 or 07813 806 297 or at nikki.barrow@johnmurrays.co.uk
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
Virago, £17.99
The Clothes on Their Backs is a story about concealed pasts, dark subjects, dark places and stark choices and how the clothes we wear define us all. In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Through Vivien we discover the colourful characters at Benson Court, who play a part in the development of this at first timid and unworldly woman. Then, one morning, a glamorous older man appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in leopard-skin on his arm. He is her Uncle Sándor, but why is he so violently unwelcome in her parents' home?
Linda Grant was born on 15th February 1951 in Liverpool and currently lives in London. She is the author of several award-winning novels, including The Cast Iron Shore, published in 1996 and When I Lived in Modern Times, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her novel Still Here was longlisted for The Booker Prize in 2002. Other award-winning books include Remind Me Who I am Again, Sexing the Millennium: A Political History of the Sexual Revolution and The People on the Street: A Writer's View of Israel.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Susan de Soissons on 020 7911 8069 or 07887 991424 or at Susan.deSoissons@littlebrown.co.uk
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
Fourth Estate, £17.99
1974. Husbands and wives, arm in arm, stroll through an invincible suburb after a summer party, secure and hopeful. Over the next twenty years everything will change for them, and for England. Set in Sheffield, The Northern Clemency charts the relationship between two families: Malcolm and Katherine Glover and their three children; and their neighbours the Sellers family, newly arrived from London. The day the Sellers move in there is a crisis across the road: Malcolm Glover has left home, convinced his wife is having an affair. The consequences of this rupture will spread throughout the lives of both couples and their children, in particular 10-year-old Tim Glover, who never quite recovers from the moment of his mother's public cruelty and the amused taunting of 15-year-old Sandra Sellers. In the background England is changing: from a land of fire and industry to a gleaming landscape of shop fronts and chain restaurants, a shift particularly marked in the North with the miners' strike of 1984.
A Booker judge himself in 2001, Philip Hensher has written five novels, Other Lulus, Kitchen Venom which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Pleasured, the Booker-longlisted The Mulberry Empire (in 2002) and The Fit, as well as a collection of short stories, The Bedroom of the Mister's House. He is a columnist for The Independent, arts critic for The Spectator and a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. He was born on 20th February 1965 and lives in South London.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Robin Harvie on 020 8307 4146 or 07771 892 797 or at Robin.harvie@harpercollins.co.uk
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Hamish Hamilton, £17.99
Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn't decide whether to pity, hate, love or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.
As he recollects the events that led to his father's demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries - about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin's constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It's a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition.
Steve Toltz was born on 21st June 1972 in Sydney and has lived in Montreal, Vancouver, Barcelona and Paris, working primarily as a screenwriter but also doing stints as a private investigator and an English teacher. A Fraction of the Whole is his first novel.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Amelia Fairney on 020 7010 3247 or 07764 774 291 or at Amelia.fairney@uk.penguingroup.com
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) won the Man Booker Prize 2007.
The Man Booker 2008 longlist, which was announced on 29th July, was:
Author Title Publisher
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger Atlantic
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress Tindal Street Press
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber
John Berger From A to X Verso
Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog Chatto & Windus
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago
Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes Jonathan Cape
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate
Joseph O'Neill Netherland Fourth Estate
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence Jonathan Cape
Tom Rob Smith Child 44 Simon & Schuster
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton
*
The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969, and Man Group plc was announced as the sponsor of the prize in April 2002, with a five year extension agreed in 2006. For a full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges visit the website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/. The site features the rules of entry, background information and breaking news and is the quickest way for the prize's worldwide audience to access information.
* Every year publishers are allowed to submit two books for the Man Booker Prize. Every former Booker Prize winner and any author who has appeared on the shortlist in the last ten years is also eligible.
* 2008 is the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize (now the Man Booker Prize) for Fiction. To mark the occasion, a range of events and initiatives have been taking place throughout the year.
The six shortlisted books were chosen from a longlist of 13 and are:
Author Title Publisher
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger Atlantic
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton
Michael Portillo, Chair of Judges, comments:
"The judges commend the six titles to readers with great enthusiasm. These novels are intensely readable, each of them an extraordinary example of imagination and narrative. These fine page-turning stories nonetheless raise highly thought-provoking ideas and issues. These books are in every case both ambitious and approachable."
The 2008 shortlist includes two first time novelists, Aravind Adiga and Steve Toltz. The six authors represent a broad geographical spread with two Indian authors, two English authors, an Australian author and an Irish author. The youngest on the list, at 34 years old, is Aravind Adiga. Sebastian Barry was shortlisted in 2005 for his novel A Long, Long Way, Linda Grant was longlisted in 2002 for her novel Still Here and Philip Hensher, once a Booker judge himself, was also longlisted in 2002 for his novel The Mulberry Empire.
The winner receives £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.
The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Michael Portillo, former MP and Cabinet Minister; Alex Clark, editor of Granta; Louise Doughty, novelist; James Heneage, founder of Ottakar's bookshops and Hardeep Singh Kohli, TV and radio broadcaster.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October at a dinner at the Guildhall, London. The announcement will be broadcast live on BBC One's 10 O'Clock News.
This year, the Man Booker Prize has exclusively partnered with mobile site GoSpoken to make extracts from the shortlisted books available to download free onto your mobile phone. They can either be read as text or listened to as audio. The extracts will be available from the moment the shortlist is announced by texting MBP to 60300. This is the first time that any book prize has used mobile technology to promote its shortlist.
On Monday 13th October, the eve of the winner announcement, the Southbank Centre in London will host an evening of readings and discussion with the 2008 shortlisted authors.
-ends-
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Atlantic Books, £12.99
Born in the heartland of India to the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram Halwai, the ‘White Tiger', dreams of escaping his life as a teashop worker turned chauffeur. Yet when his chance finally arrives and his eyes are opened to the revelatory city of New Delhi, Balram becomes caught between his instinct to be a loyal son and servant and his desire to better himself. As he passes through two different Indias on his journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success, he begins to realise how the Tiger might finally escape his cage, and he is not afraid to spill a little blood along the way.
Aravind Adiga was born in Madras on 23rd October 1974 and raised partly in Australia. He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities and is a former correspondent for TIME magazine in India. Adiga's articles have also appeared in publications such as the Financial Times, Independent and Sunday Times. He currently lives in Mumbai.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Karen Duffy on 020 7269 1621 or at KarenDuffy@groveatlantic.co.uk
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Faber and Faber, £16.99
Roseanne McNulty, perhaps nearing her one-hundredth birthday - no one is quite sure - faces an uncertain future as the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. She talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene in the weeks leading up to the closure. Told through their respective journals, the shocking story of Roseanne's family in 1930s Sligo emerges. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland. The Secret Scripture is the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment yet marked by passion and hope.
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin on 5th July 1955. He has written a number of plays and his novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne (2002) and A Long Long Way (2005) which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Dublin International Impac Prize. He has won, among other awards, the Irish-America Fund Literary Award, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize. He currently lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Kate Burton on 020 7465 7554 or at Kate.burton@faber.co.uk
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
John Murray, £18.99
Set just before the Opium Wars, this novel has at its heart an old slaving-ship, The Ibis and its crew, a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations.
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta on 11th July 1956 and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford. He has taught at a number of institutions, most recently Harvard, and written for many publications. His international bestseller, The Glass Palace was published in 2000. He currently divides his time between Calcutta, Goa and Brooklyn.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Nikki Barrow on 020 7873 6440 or 07813 806 297 or at nikki.barrow@johnmurrays.co.uk
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
Virago, £17.99
The Clothes on Their Backs is a story about concealed pasts, dark subjects, dark places and stark choices and how the clothes we wear define us all. In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Through Vivien we discover the colourful characters at Benson Court, who play a part in the development of this at first timid and unworldly woman. Then, one morning, a glamorous older man appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in leopard-skin on his arm. He is her Uncle Sándor, but why is he so violently unwelcome in her parents' home?
Linda Grant was born on 15th February 1951 in Liverpool and currently lives in London. She is the author of several award-winning novels, including The Cast Iron Shore, published in 1996 and When I Lived in Modern Times, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her novel Still Here was longlisted for The Booker Prize in 2002. Other award-winning books include Remind Me Who I am Again, Sexing the Millennium: A Political History of the Sexual Revolution and The People on the Street: A Writer's View of Israel.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Susan de Soissons on 020 7911 8069 or 07887 991424 or at Susan.deSoissons@littlebrown.co.uk
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
Fourth Estate, £17.99
1974. Husbands and wives, arm in arm, stroll through an invincible suburb after a summer party, secure and hopeful. Over the next twenty years everything will change for them, and for England. Set in Sheffield, The Northern Clemency charts the relationship between two families: Malcolm and Katherine Glover and their three children; and their neighbours the Sellers family, newly arrived from London. The day the Sellers move in there is a crisis across the road: Malcolm Glover has left home, convinced his wife is having an affair. The consequences of this rupture will spread throughout the lives of both couples and their children, in particular 10-year-old Tim Glover, who never quite recovers from the moment of his mother's public cruelty and the amused taunting of 15-year-old Sandra Sellers. In the background England is changing: from a land of fire and industry to a gleaming landscape of shop fronts and chain restaurants, a shift particularly marked in the North with the miners' strike of 1984.
A Booker judge himself in 2001, Philip Hensher has written five novels, Other Lulus, Kitchen Venom which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Pleasured, the Booker-longlisted The Mulberry Empire (in 2002) and The Fit, as well as a collection of short stories, The Bedroom of the Mister's House. He is a columnist for The Independent, arts critic for The Spectator and a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. He was born on 20th February 1965 and lives in South London.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Robin Harvie on 020 8307 4146 or 07771 892 797 or at Robin.harvie@harpercollins.co.uk
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Hamish Hamilton, £17.99
Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn't decide whether to pity, hate, love or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.
As he recollects the events that led to his father's demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries - about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin's constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It's a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition.
Steve Toltz was born on 21st June 1972 in Sydney and has lived in Montreal, Vancouver, Barcelona and Paris, working primarily as a screenwriter but also doing stints as a private investigator and an English teacher. A Fraction of the Whole is his first novel.
For further information or interview requests please contact:
Amelia Fairney on 020 7010 3247 or 07764 774 291 or at Amelia.fairney@uk.penguingroup.com
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) won the Man Booker Prize 2007.
The Man Booker 2008 longlist, which was announced on 29th July, was:
Author Title Publisher
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger Atlantic
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress Tindal Street Press
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber
John Berger From A to X Verso
Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog Chatto & Windus
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago
Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes Jonathan Cape
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate
Joseph O'Neill Netherland Fourth Estate
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence Jonathan Cape
Tom Rob Smith Child 44 Simon & Schuster
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton
*
The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969, and Man Group plc was announced as the sponsor of the prize in April 2002, with a five year extension agreed in 2006. For a full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges visit the website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/. The site features the rules of entry, background information and breaking news and is the quickest way for the prize's worldwide audience to access information.
* Every year publishers are allowed to submit two books for the Man Booker Prize. Every former Booker Prize winner and any author who has appeared on the shortlist in the last ten years is also eligible.
* 2008 is the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize (now the Man Booker Prize) for Fiction. To mark the occasion, a range of events and initiatives have been taking place throughout the year.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
A sneak preview of Wordsetc
Wordsetc costs little (or very little, depending on the size of your pocket and the rate of inflation) and is very good reading for readers, writers, reviewers, publishers even.. It pulls together the SA literary scene without trampling on too many egos, includes some interesting pieces from abroad, provides an outlet for new short fiction and literary journalism and exploits the advantages that print offers over the internet when it comes to book news and reviews. A subscription makes a great gift.
Appropriately for women's month, the next issue of Wordsetc focuses on women writers. You might also want to check out Wordsetc at www.wordsetc.co.za
More about Wordsetc
Wordsetc promotes the consumption of South African literature. It also features great writing from elsewhere in the world. A quarterly, it launched in December 2007. So far three editions have come out. Most people have responded very positively to its emergence.
What some people have said about Wordsetc:
"Wordsetc is an essential new voice, not only for readers already hooked on African writing but for those who'd like to read more but aren't quite sure what. Well researched and written lead articles like those on Sol Plaatje, Es'kia Mphahlele and Ingrid Jonker, solid book reviews and insightful features like Why I Write and Writing Lives should guarantee Wordsetc an honoured place in readers' homes and all South African libraries – if only there were more." – Jenny Hobbs, Franschhoek
"Often as South Africans we tend to look to overseas texts as a means of fulfillment as we struggle to accept South Africa as a literary nation. Wordsetc aims to challenge such a mindset and takes into consideration that South Africa has indeed much to offer on the literary side of things." – Elizabeth Joss
Stellenbosch
"As a writer who treasures writing and beauty, I wanted to write to express my gratitude to you for the inspiration of Wordsetc. I am struck by the
high quality of everything from the layout, the photography and the writing." –
Barbara Nussbaum, Johannesburg
Wordsetc is R49.95. Subscription is R170 for four copies. The website is www.wordsetc.co.za. It's available at all Exclusive Books and CNA, as well as at these independent bookstores and outlets:
Gauteng
Boekehuis
Xarra Books
Parkhurst Bookstore
Books Unlimited (Greenside)
Arternatives Gallery (Mall of Rosebank)
Service Station Cafe (Melville)
Protea Books (Hatfield)
Bookbinders (Fourways Crossing)
Bookdealers of Melville
Bookdealers of Bryanston
Western Cape
The Book Lounge
Clarke's Bookstore
Kalk Bay Books
The Book Cottage (Hermanus)
Readers' Paradise (Kloof Street)
Bright House Decor Store (cnr Shortmarket and Bree streets, CT)
Protea Books (University of Stellenbosch)
KwaZulu-Natal
Adams (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts
The White Cottage (Nottingham Road, Midlands)
Urban Zulu (Berea Road)
Ike's Books and Collectables (Florida Road)
Appropriately for women's month, the next issue of Wordsetc focuses on women writers. You might also want to check out Wordsetc at www.wordsetc.co.za
More about Wordsetc
Wordsetc promotes the consumption of South African literature. It also features great writing from elsewhere in the world. A quarterly, it launched in December 2007. So far three editions have come out. Most people have responded very positively to its emergence.
What some people have said about Wordsetc:
"Wordsetc is an essential new voice, not only for readers already hooked on African writing but for those who'd like to read more but aren't quite sure what. Well researched and written lead articles like those on Sol Plaatje, Es'kia Mphahlele and Ingrid Jonker, solid book reviews and insightful features like Why I Write and Writing Lives should guarantee Wordsetc an honoured place in readers' homes and all South African libraries – if only there were more." – Jenny Hobbs, Franschhoek
"Often as South Africans we tend to look to overseas texts as a means of fulfillment as we struggle to accept South Africa as a literary nation. Wordsetc aims to challenge such a mindset and takes into consideration that South Africa has indeed much to offer on the literary side of things." – Elizabeth Joss
Stellenbosch
"As a writer who treasures writing and beauty, I wanted to write to express my gratitude to you for the inspiration of Wordsetc. I am struck by the
high quality of everything from the layout, the photography and the writing." –
Barbara Nussbaum, Johannesburg
Wordsetc is R49.95. Subscription is R170 for four copies. The website is www.wordsetc.co.za. It's available at all Exclusive Books and CNA, as well as at these independent bookstores and outlets:
Gauteng
Boekehuis
Xarra Books
Parkhurst Bookstore
Books Unlimited (Greenside)
Arternatives Gallery (Mall of Rosebank)
Service Station Cafe (Melville)
Protea Books (Hatfield)
Bookbinders (Fourways Crossing)
Bookdealers of Melville
Bookdealers of Bryanston
Western Cape
The Book Lounge
Clarke's Bookstore
Kalk Bay Books
The Book Cottage (Hermanus)
Readers' Paradise (Kloof Street)
Bright House Decor Store (cnr Shortmarket and Bree streets, CT)
Protea Books (University of Stellenbosch)
KwaZulu-Natal
Adams (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts
The White Cottage (Nottingham Road, Midlands)
Urban Zulu (Berea Road)
Ike's Books and Collectables (Florida Road)
Monday, September 01, 2008
The Love Africa Carnival, an online celebration of Africa
The Love Africa Carnival, an online celebration of Africa, continent of 2000 languages, is calling for submissions for the Carnival blog-zine at BOOK SA, Africa's most lively literary website:
poems ,paragraphs, microfiction, short stories, comic strips, fables, fairytales, essays, Illustrated stories
ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING THEMES:
Love Africa
Past, present or future of Love in Africa
Place, person, building, book, detail, language, object, insect, animal, or thing, I love in Africa
The day I love most in in my life so far in Africa/ in the history of Africa
Spirits, myths and legends of love in Africa
Sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell I love in Africa
Love --a story for children of Africa
Africa--a Grimm-like fairytale of Love
MONTHLY BOOK PRIZE FOR MOST POPULAR ENTRY
Hearty thanks to the following authors for supporting the Love Africa Carnival with book prize donations:
Michael Ambetchew, Gabeba Baderoon, André Brink,
Lauren Beukes, Richard De Nooy, Louis Greenberg,
Liesl Jobson, Sarah Lotz, Jo-anne Richards,
Henrietta Rose Innes, Ben Trovato
Please send submissions to Alex at loveafricacarnival@gmail.com , that are:
1.Original and unpublished
2.With author's full name, place of birth, country of residence and a couple of lines of 'about the author' bio.
poems ,paragraphs, microfiction, short stories, comic strips, fables, fairytales, essays, Illustrated stories
ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING THEMES:
Love Africa
Past, present or future of Love in Africa
Place, person, building, book, detail, language, object, insect, animal, or thing, I love in Africa
The day I love most in in my life so far in Africa/ in the history of Africa
Spirits, myths and legends of love in Africa
Sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell I love in Africa
Love --a story for children of Africa
Africa--a Grimm-like fairytale of Love
MONTHLY BOOK PRIZE FOR MOST POPULAR ENTRY
Hearty thanks to the following authors for supporting the Love Africa Carnival with book prize donations:
Michael Ambetchew, Gabeba Baderoon, André Brink,
Lauren Beukes, Richard De Nooy, Louis Greenberg,
Liesl Jobson, Sarah Lotz, Jo-anne Richards,
Henrietta Rose Innes, Ben Trovato
Please send submissions to Alex at loveafricacarnival@gmail.com , that are:
1.Original and unpublished
2.With author's full name, place of birth, country of residence and a couple of lines of 'about the author' bio.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
On the Other Side of Shame by Joanne Jowell launches
Kalk Bay Books & Pan MacMillan invite you to the launch of
On the Other Side of Shame by Joanne Jowell
When: THURSDAY 7 August 2008
Where: Kalk Bay Books, 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay
Time: 6.30 for 7pm (please note starting time)
RSVP: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za or 021 788 2266 by 6 August.
NB: Please indicate numbers for catering purposes)
Lynette Langman’s telephone rang on a Sunday night in 2001, heralding the call that would unravel her life. For 40 years she had waited to hear news about the son she gave up for adoption when she was virtually a child herself.
Set primarily against the backdrop of Cape Town, from the 1960s to the present day, On the Other Side of Shame hooks into the enduring traditions of the Jewish community and examines the intricacies of the adoption/reunion saga through the eyes of those most deeply affected, highlighting the peculiarities which make this story unique.
On the Other Side of Shame by Joanne Jowell
When: THURSDAY 7 August 2008
Where: Kalk Bay Books, 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay
Time: 6.30 for 7pm (please note starting time)
RSVP: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za or 021 788 2266 by 6 August.
NB: Please indicate numbers for catering purposes)
Lynette Langman’s telephone rang on a Sunday night in 2001, heralding the call that would unravel her life. For 40 years she had waited to hear news about the son she gave up for adoption when she was virtually a child herself.
Set primarily against the backdrop of Cape Town, from the 1960s to the present day, On the Other Side of Shame hooks into the enduring traditions of the Jewish community and examines the intricacies of the adoption/reunion saga through the eyes of those most deeply affected, highlighting the peculiarities which make this story unique.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
*New* poetry: For Charity and Francis Matyaka by Rethabile Masilo
Unable to move, she watch them drag him
from the house into a donga
and beat him, one goon opening his body
to pour blood into the off-colour ditch,
like wine seeking the whiteness of cloth
that cover the brains of boys
and redden their eyes with joy.
Everyone try not to look
but go their way into the dim June dusk
to their families.
Even God don’t interfere
when they beat people like this
with sjambok and machete.
They killed him, killed him as I watched, she say,
speaking to no one in particular.
He wailed, but they kept on beating him quietly.
The women shake their heads and speak
in subdued dialect
of herd boy who find a half-clothed body,
half-eaten by hyenas. She wail some more,
as harpooned whale do.
Her hands hold her head
like she want to unscrew it
and give it back to God.
The women tut-tut and shake their heads
to see her wail like this.
Night come, and soon it is
the lighting of lamps, and everyone shout
to call daughter or son to table
for a bit of pap and soup, after
the ritual of water and soap.
© Rethabile Masilo 2008
First published by iBhuku.com
Rethabile Masilo is a native of Lesotho living and working in Paris, France. Mr. Masilo enjoys reading and writing poetry. He runs two blogs, Poéfrika http://poefrika.blogspot.com and Sotho http://sotho.blogsome.com, and is also co-editor of a literary magazine, Canopic Jar http://canopicjar.com. He is married and has two children.
from the house into a donga
and beat him, one goon opening his body
to pour blood into the off-colour ditch,
like wine seeking the whiteness of cloth
that cover the brains of boys
and redden their eyes with joy.
Everyone try not to look
but go their way into the dim June dusk
to their families.
Even God don’t interfere
when they beat people like this
with sjambok and machete.
They killed him, killed him as I watched, she say,
speaking to no one in particular.
He wailed, but they kept on beating him quietly.
The women shake their heads and speak
in subdued dialect
of herd boy who find a half-clothed body,
half-eaten by hyenas. She wail some more,
as harpooned whale do.
Her hands hold her head
like she want to unscrew it
and give it back to God.
The women tut-tut and shake their heads
to see her wail like this.
Night come, and soon it is
the lighting of lamps, and everyone shout
to call daughter or son to table
for a bit of pap and soup, after
the ritual of water and soap.
© Rethabile Masilo 2008
First published by iBhuku.com
Rethabile Masilo is a native of Lesotho living and working in Paris, France. Mr. Masilo enjoys reading and writing poetry. He runs two blogs, Poéfrika http://poefrika.blogspot.com and Sotho http://sotho.blogsome.com, and is also co-editor of a literary magazine, Canopic Jar http://canopicjar.com. He is married and has two children.
Henrietta Rose-Innes wins 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing
Henrietta Rose-Innes has won the 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing. She started her published writing career in English Alive from 1985 to 1989 when she was a student at Westerford High School, and when Michael King was Editor of English Alive. She was shortlisted for the Caine in both 2007 and 2008. She attended the Caine Prize fortnight-long workshop in Noordhoek in April, and the award announcement and celebratory dinner in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
SA PEN announces PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award
Following the success of the HSBC/SA PEN Literary Awards,
SA PEN announces a call for entries for the new
PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award.
Writers from African and SADC countries are invited to submit original,
previously unpublished, English-language
SHORT STORIES
The best entries will be selected by an editorial board for inclusion in
a book to be published next year, under the working title
“NEW WRITING FROM AFRICA”
Three prize winners will be selected by
Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee
Prizes, given by John Studzinski, will be awarded:
£5 000, £3 000 and £2 000
Rules for submission of entries:
Entrants must be citizens of an African or SADC* country.
Stories, on any subject, must be in English; length should be 2 500 to 5 000 words.
Entries must be previously unpublished. More than one entry may be submitted.
Entries must be typed, in double spacing, on one side of A4 paper. Pages must be numbered and securely fastened together. Three copies must be submitted.
No name or address should appear on the typescript, but each page must carry the title of the story. The identity of authors will not be revealed to judges.
A covering letter with the name, e-mail & postal address, contact numbers, and photocopy of the ID of the entrant (as proof of citizenship) must be included. Entrants may currently reside outside of Africa.
Submission of entries implies adherence to all rules and conditions of this award, including that of copyright.
Closing date: 30th September 2008
Send your entry to: PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award, P O Box 30327, Tokai, 7966, Republic of South Africa. Fax and e-mail entries will not be accepted.
Detailed rules and conditions for submission are available at www.sapen.co.za,
or e-mail SA PEN at rudebs@icon.co.za
SA PEN announces a call for entries for the new
PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award.
Writers from African and SADC countries are invited to submit original,
previously unpublished, English-language
SHORT STORIES
The best entries will be selected by an editorial board for inclusion in
a book to be published next year, under the working title
“NEW WRITING FROM AFRICA”
Three prize winners will be selected by
Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee
Prizes, given by John Studzinski, will be awarded:
£5 000, £3 000 and £2 000
Rules for submission of entries:
Entrants must be citizens of an African or SADC* country.
Stories, on any subject, must be in English; length should be 2 500 to 5 000 words.
Entries must be previously unpublished. More than one entry may be submitted.
Entries must be typed, in double spacing, on one side of A4 paper. Pages must be numbered and securely fastened together. Three copies must be submitted.
No name or address should appear on the typescript, but each page must carry the title of the story. The identity of authors will not be revealed to judges.
A covering letter with the name, e-mail & postal address, contact numbers, and photocopy of the ID of the entrant (as proof of citizenship) must be included. Entrants may currently reside outside of Africa.
Submission of entries implies adherence to all rules and conditions of this award, including that of copyright.
Closing date: 30th September 2008
Send your entry to: PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award, P O Box 30327, Tokai, 7966, Republic of South Africa. Fax and e-mail entries will not be accepted.
Detailed rules and conditions for submission are available at www.sapen.co.za,
or e-mail SA PEN at rudebs@icon.co.za
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Henrietta Rose-Innes and Stanley Kenani attend Caine Prize prize-giving ceremony
The short stories "Poison", "For Honour" and "The day of the surgical colloquium hosted by the Far East Rand Hospital" by Henrietta, Stanley, and Gill Schierhout respectively, were featured in "African Pens", the third of the HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award publications. They are among the five authors who have been nominated for the Caine Prize.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Imraan Coovadia in conversation with Damon Galgut at Kalk Bay Books
Kalk Bay Books & Penguin SA invite you to an authors' discussion
Imraan Coovadia
in conversation with
Damon Galgut
at the Kalk Bay Books' launch of
The Imposter*
(RSVP not necessary if you have already replied to this invitation via the Kalk Bay Books newsletter or website.)
When: Saturday 5 July 2008
Where: Kalk Bay Books, 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay
Time: 6.30 for 7pm (please note starting time)
RSVP: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za or 021 788 2266 by 4 July.
Imraan Coovadia
in conversation with
Damon Galgut
at the Kalk Bay Books' launch of
The Imposter*
(RSVP not necessary if you have already replied to this invitation via the Kalk Bay Books newsletter or website.)
When: Saturday 5 July 2008
Where: Kalk Bay Books, 124 Main Road, Kalk Bay
Time: 6.30 for 7pm (please note starting time)
RSVP: books@kalkbaybooks.co.za or 021 788 2266 by 4 July.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Ghost Writer, a collection of poems by Jane Fox
GHOST WRITER a collection of poems by JANE FOX published by Snailpress in its UMS series launches at Clarke’s Bookshop 211 Long Street Cape Townon Friday 4 July from 6pm
The poet will be introduced by Gus Ferguson. Wine and aqua frizzante
RSVP: snaily@pulsar.co.za or
021 762 3714 (leave message)
Jane Fox’s writing life took off when she first met her late husband and mentor, Lionel Abrahams. On his advice she tries to obviate the obvious, accentuate the positive, to be socially irrelevant, politically insignificant and hopefully unpredictable. She believes in the supreme value and spiritual dimension of the individual. She lives with children and grandchildren in an extended family home near Johannesburg.
The poet will be introduced by Gus Ferguson. Wine and aqua frizzante
RSVP: snaily@pulsar.co.za or
021 762 3714 (leave message)
Jane Fox’s writing life took off when she first met her late husband and mentor, Lionel Abrahams. On his advice she tries to obviate the obvious, accentuate the positive, to be socially irrelevant, politically insignificant and hopefully unpredictable. She believes in the supreme value and spiritual dimension of the individual. She lives with children and grandchildren in an extended family home near Johannesburg.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Whiplash comes to the Book Lounge
Modjaji Books and the Book Lounge invite you to what promises to be a
fascinating discussion:
On Thursday 3rd July, 2008
At 6 for 6.30
Tracey Farren, author of "Whiplash" will be in conversation with Henry
Trotter, author of "Sugargirls and Seamen" (Jacana)
Tracey will also read a short excerpt from Whiplash and answer questions.
Whiplash is a gripping, funny, gritty story about Tess, a Muizenberg
street prostitute who changes her life in unexpected ways.
RSVP to the Book Lounge
Tel: 021 462 2425
booklounge@gmail.com
fascinating discussion:
On Thursday 3rd July, 2008
At 6 for 6.30
Tracey Farren, author of "Whiplash" will be in conversation with Henry
Trotter, author of "Sugargirls and Seamen" (Jacana)
Tracey will also read a short excerpt from Whiplash and answer questions.
Whiplash is a gripping, funny, gritty story about Tess, a Muizenberg
street prostitute who changes her life in unexpected ways.
RSVP to the Book Lounge
Tel: 021 462 2425
booklounge@gmail.com
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sarah Lotz launches "Pompidou Posse" at The Book Lounge
SA PEN member members Sarah Lotz and Lauren Beukes will be involved in a further launch of Sarah's book, "Pompidou Posse" at The Book Lounge on Tuesday, 24th June 2008, 6.00 for 6.30 p.m. Lauren will be introducing Sarah and grilling her on her book, a black comic romp based on her real-life experience of living homeless in the city of lights in the 80s. RSVP to booklounge@gmail.com if you would like to attend.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
How to write a screenplay course for Kalk Bay
This course is offered by Karin Johnstone, lecturer at AFDA Filmschool, in the quaint French bakery C'est La Vie in Kalk Bay (voted by Marie Claire one of the 20 best Cafes in South Africa)
Course content
Discover all of the elements involved in writing a great Screenplay for film. In a concise one-day course, discover everything that you need to know about screenwriting for feature film.
Structuring your story
Constructing a dramatic story
What is a screenplay?
Developing characters
Script format
When
28 June 2008 - from 09:30 until 16:30
Cost:
500 Rand includes materials, Mid-morning snack and lunch, as well as coffees, teas and cool drinks
Book now as numbers are limited.
Chris 083-4123480
email: info@thetranslationagent.com
Course content
Discover all of the elements involved in writing a great Screenplay for film. In a concise one-day course, discover everything that you need to know about screenwriting for feature film.
Structuring your story
Constructing a dramatic story
What is a screenplay?
Developing characters
Script format
When
28 June 2008 - from 09:30 until 16:30
Cost:
500 Rand includes materials, Mid-morning snack and lunch, as well as coffees, teas and cool drinks
Book now as numbers are limited.
Chris 083-4123480
email: info@thetranslationagent.com
Monday, June 09, 2008
The Book Lounge hosts Rustum Kozain, Isobel Dixon and Kelwyn Sole
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
6:30pm - 7:30pm
The Book Lounge
Cnr. Roeland and Buitenkant Streets
Cape Town, South Africa
021 4622425
Email: booklounge@gmail.com
The Book Lounge provides wine, fruit juice and some snacks. The host also needs an idea of numbers for seating arrangements, so please RSVP at: booklounge@gmail.com
6:30pm - 7:30pm
The Book Lounge
Cnr. Roeland and Buitenkant Streets
Cape Town, South Africa
021 4622425
Email: booklounge@gmail.com
The Book Lounge provides wine, fruit juice and some snacks. The host also needs an idea of numbers for seating arrangements, so please RSVP at: booklounge@gmail.com
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Lit-blitz, dinner & jazz fund-raising gig for refugees
Some of Cape Town's finest wordmongers, cooks & musicians get it on for
Lit-blitz, dinner & jazz fund-raising gig for refugees
On Sunday June 15
Baobab Books & Joburg Country Club
host an evening of literary, musical and culinary delight
** The
Lit-Blitz ** featuring :
Lauren Beukes
Finuala Dowling
Gus Ferguson
Hugh Hodge
Sarah Lotz
Epiphanie Mukasano
Patricia Schonstein
Mary Magdalene Yuin Tal
Sam Wilson
and Klean Kut by Terry Westby Nunn
with MC Ace Raconteur Guy Willoughby
starts in Baobab Bookshop @ 6 pm & ends @ 7:30 pm
followed by a three-course African feast in Joburg Country Club with live jazz:
Andrew Ford on keyboard
Lucrecia Rodrigues on vocals
Graham Beyer on double bass
COST: Entry by donations of 30 Rand or more
Optional dinner @ R100 a head
(Please book to secure a table.)
VENUE: Baobab Mall, 210 Long Street
(opposite Adult World)
Free entry to after-party @ Joburg Bar, 218 Long Street,
featuring The Lonesharks with Dave Ferguson.
Funds raised go to the Whole World Women Association
(founded in 2002 as a self-help and support group for refugee women)
FOR FURTHER INFO & TO BOOK, CONTACT:
Tania: 0712913337/ tvs@uskonet.com OR Julie: 0834111004/ firsted@iafrica.com
WE ARE COLLECTING TINNED FOOD, BABY SUPPLIES, BLANKETS & CLOTHES ON THE NIGHT.
PLEASE BRING ANY DONATIONS.
*****************
PERFORMERS’ BIOS -- in alphabetical order:
Lauren Beukes: is the author of Moxyland, a pyrotechnic urban thriller and Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past. She's also the head writer at Clockwork Zoo Animation and a freelance journalist.
Graham Beyer: is a double bass player, the new Head of Music at Bergvliet High and he often plays with the likes of Jimmy Dludlu.
Finuala Dowling: is the author of two novels – What Poets Need and Flyleaf – and two volumes of poetry — I Flying (awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize) and Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe (joint winner of the SANLAM award). She has read her poetry at international festivals both locally and overseas. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in several anthologies.
Gus Ferguson: Cape Town’s much-loved poet, cartoonist, cyclist and publisher. He has received numerous poetry prizes. Under the imprints Snailpress and Firfield Press, Ferguson has published 97+ collections of poetry.
Andrew Ford: is a swinging piano player, old school style. This top jazz pianist studied music for 16 years, is the owner of 2 recording studios, he's worked with many artists and conducted the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.
Hugh Hodge: writes computer programs for a living, but poems for a life. Despite being commonly left-brained, and occasionally no-brained, Hugh writes poetry that is sometimes published. He hosts the Off-the-Wall poetry gig Mondays in Obz, and edits New Contrast.
Sarah Lotz: warps children's minds as a screenwriter for children's television and hopes to corrupt even more minds with her much anticipated, already acclaimed novel, Pompidou Posse, published by Penguin, launched on the 14th of June.
Epiphanie Mukasano: is a teacher with a Masters in English Literature, also a contributor to Living on the Fence: Poems by Women who are Refugees from Various Countries in Africa, she has performed her work at various venues, including the Spier Poetry Exchange.
Lucrecia Rodrigues: is a devilish diva-licious jazz vocalist. Listening to her iconoclastic renditions of favourite jazz classics certainly gives audience members some "fever". But, "what a lovely way to burn"! A regular act at the Grand West casino, Lucrecia has performed at various City venues including Kennedy's and the Green Dolphin.
Patricia Schonstein: is a novelist, poet and author of children's books. Her works, while being richly descriptive and opulent, question, at core, the recurrence of war and genocide. “If I have succeeded, through my novels and poetry, in highlighting the futility of war and the need to engender peace, not only among ourselves but also towards the earth and all living things; and if I have adequately described the plight of refugees, and the emotional carnage left by genocide, then I would consider these to be my greatest achievements as an author.”
Mary Magdalene Yuin Tal
: is an activist, writer and lawyer, co-ordinator of the Whole World Women Organisation, an NGO working with refugee women, as well as an editor and contributor to Living on the Fence: Poems by Women who are Refugees from Various Countries in Africa.
Guy Willoughby: Raconteur, writer and witty after-dinner mint, Guy has made plays, caused trouble and started people laughing on three continents. He is not continent. Be warned.
Sam Wilson:
is a television writer and comedian. He has written sitcoms and cartoon shows, and performed stand-up in various cities around the country. He was born in England and raised in Zimbabwe.
Klean Kut Barbing Salon:
Khayalitsha 1999: 7 minutes.
In an environment hostile to foreigners, Notemba from South Africa and Robert, a Ghanian, share not only a love for hairdressing, but also their Pan-African wisdom of integration.
Directed by Terry Westby-Nunn:
For 14 years Terry Westby-Nunn has been directing, filming, editing, and scripting. She’s worked on projects for The Nelson Mandela Foundation, the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, the SABC, e-tv and M-Net… Her latest documentary “Tripping Down Long Street” was broadcast on SABC in 2007.
Lit-blitz, dinner & jazz fund-raising gig for refugees
On Sunday June 15
Baobab Books & Joburg Country Club
host an evening of literary, musical and culinary delight
** The
Lit-Blitz ** featuring :
Lauren Beukes
Finuala Dowling
Gus Ferguson
Hugh Hodge
Sarah Lotz
Epiphanie Mukasano
Patricia Schonstein
Mary Magdalene Yuin Tal
Sam Wilson
and Klean Kut by Terry Westby Nunn
with MC Ace Raconteur Guy Willoughby
starts in Baobab Bookshop @ 6 pm & ends @ 7:30 pm
followed by a three-course African feast in Joburg Country Club with live jazz:
Andrew Ford on keyboard
Lucrecia Rodrigues on vocals
Graham Beyer on double bass
COST: Entry by donations of 30 Rand or more
Optional dinner @ R100 a head
(Please book to secure a table.)
VENUE: Baobab Mall, 210 Long Street
(opposite Adult World)
Free entry to after-party @ Joburg Bar, 218 Long Street,
featuring The Lonesharks with Dave Ferguson.
Funds raised go to the Whole World Women Association
(founded in 2002 as a self-help and support group for refugee women)
FOR FURTHER INFO & TO BOOK, CONTACT:
Tania: 0712913337/ tvs@uskonet.com OR Julie: 0834111004/ firsted@iafrica.com
WE ARE COLLECTING TINNED FOOD, BABY SUPPLIES, BLANKETS & CLOTHES ON THE NIGHT.
PLEASE BRING ANY DONATIONS.
*****************
PERFORMERS’ BIOS -- in alphabetical order:
Lauren Beukes: is the author of Moxyland, a pyrotechnic urban thriller and Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past. She's also the head writer at Clockwork Zoo Animation and a freelance journalist.
Graham Beyer: is a double bass player, the new Head of Music at Bergvliet High and he often plays with the likes of Jimmy Dludlu.
Finuala Dowling: is the author of two novels – What Poets Need and Flyleaf – and two volumes of poetry — I Flying (awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize) and Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe (joint winner of the SANLAM award). She has read her poetry at international festivals both locally and overseas. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in several anthologies.
Gus Ferguson: Cape Town’s much-loved poet, cartoonist, cyclist and publisher. He has received numerous poetry prizes. Under the imprints Snailpress and Firfield Press, Ferguson has published 97+ collections of poetry.
Andrew Ford: is a swinging piano player, old school style. This top jazz pianist studied music for 16 years, is the owner of 2 recording studios, he's worked with many artists and conducted the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.
Hugh Hodge: writes computer programs for a living, but poems for a life. Despite being commonly left-brained, and occasionally no-brained, Hugh writes poetry that is sometimes published. He hosts the Off-the-Wall poetry gig Mondays in Obz, and edits New Contrast.
Sarah Lotz: warps children's minds as a screenwriter for children's television and hopes to corrupt even more minds with her much anticipated, already acclaimed novel, Pompidou Posse, published by Penguin, launched on the 14th of June.
Epiphanie Mukasano: is a teacher with a Masters in English Literature, also a contributor to Living on the Fence: Poems by Women who are Refugees from Various Countries in Africa, she has performed her work at various venues, including the Spier Poetry Exchange.
Lucrecia Rodrigues: is a devilish diva-licious jazz vocalist. Listening to her iconoclastic renditions of favourite jazz classics certainly gives audience members some "fever". But, "what a lovely way to burn"! A regular act at the Grand West casino, Lucrecia has performed at various City venues including Kennedy's and the Green Dolphin.
Patricia Schonstein: is a novelist, poet and author of children's books. Her works, while being richly descriptive and opulent, question, at core, the recurrence of war and genocide. “If I have succeeded, through my novels and poetry, in highlighting the futility of war and the need to engender peace, not only among ourselves but also towards the earth and all living things; and if I have adequately described the plight of refugees, and the emotional carnage left by genocide, then I would consider these to be my greatest achievements as an author.”
Mary Magdalene Yuin Tal
: is an activist, writer and lawyer, co-ordinator of the Whole World Women Organisation, an NGO working with refugee women, as well as an editor and contributor to Living on the Fence: Poems by Women who are Refugees from Various Countries in Africa.
Guy Willoughby: Raconteur, writer and witty after-dinner mint, Guy has made plays, caused trouble and started people laughing on three continents. He is not continent. Be warned.
Sam Wilson:
is a television writer and comedian. He has written sitcoms and cartoon shows, and performed stand-up in various cities around the country. He was born in England and raised in Zimbabwe.
Klean Kut Barbing Salon:
Khayalitsha 1999: 7 minutes.
In an environment hostile to foreigners, Notemba from South Africa and Robert, a Ghanian, share not only a love for hairdressing, but also their Pan-African wisdom of integration.
Directed by Terry Westby-Nunn:
For 14 years Terry Westby-Nunn has been directing, filming, editing, and scripting. She’s worked on projects for The Nelson Mandela Foundation, the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, the SABC, e-tv and M-Net… Her latest documentary “Tripping Down Long Street” was broadcast on SABC in 2007.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
South African community libraries receive over R300 million
Community libraries in South Africa have been allocated R338 million for the current financial year in an effort to promote a culture of reading.
Presenting his Budget Vote on Monday, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan announced that the national library will receive R65.3 million while national museums will receive R409.9 million.
The minister also allocated R1 million towards the building of a library in Timbuktu, Mali.
Mr Jordan explained that the donation follows the signing of a Bi-National Agreement between South Africa and Mali.
He said this stipulates commitment to fund-raising and providing assistance toward the construction of a new library and archive for the Ahmed Baba Institute.
Other aims are to assist in marketing the heritage value of the Timbuktu Manuscripts, especially their conservation.
"We are pleased to announce that a separate trust fund was set up to fund raise from private and other donors towards the realisation of this project.
"Significantly, the Timbuktu Manuscripts are the first New Partnership for Africa's Development [NEPAD] Cultural Project which requires the support of government departments, including Arts and Culture," Minister Jordan said.
Timbuktu is the historic city in Mali where ancient manuscripts dating back to the early 13th century were found.
After visiting Mali in 2001, President Thabo Mbeki pledged to assist with the restoration and conservation of the ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu, which were in poor conditions.
An inter-governmental agreement between South Africa and Mali was signed in 2002 and the project to restore the Timbuktu manuscripts was officially launched in 2003.
The project has since been declared an official South African Presidential Project and has also been endorsed by the NEPAD as its first cultural project.
The agreement expresses the two countries' commitment to undertake a government-to-government project aimed at conserving the manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Centre and at rebuilding the library and archival infrastructure of the institute.
Speaking during the SA-Mali Timbuktu Project fundraising dinner, three years ago, President Mbeki said that African countries must contest the colonial denial of their history and initiate their own conversations and dialogues about their past.
"We need our own historians and our own scholars to interpret the history of our continent, and to undertake, with a degree of urgency, a process of reclamation and assertion," the President said at the time.
Presenting his Budget Vote on Monday, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan announced that the national library will receive R65.3 million while national museums will receive R409.9 million.
The minister also allocated R1 million towards the building of a library in Timbuktu, Mali.
Mr Jordan explained that the donation follows the signing of a Bi-National Agreement between South Africa and Mali.
He said this stipulates commitment to fund-raising and providing assistance toward the construction of a new library and archive for the Ahmed Baba Institute.
Other aims are to assist in marketing the heritage value of the Timbuktu Manuscripts, especially their conservation.
"We are pleased to announce that a separate trust fund was set up to fund raise from private and other donors towards the realisation of this project.
"Significantly, the Timbuktu Manuscripts are the first New Partnership for Africa's Development [NEPAD] Cultural Project which requires the support of government departments, including Arts and Culture," Minister Jordan said.
Timbuktu is the historic city in Mali where ancient manuscripts dating back to the early 13th century were found.
After visiting Mali in 2001, President Thabo Mbeki pledged to assist with the restoration and conservation of the ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu, which were in poor conditions.
An inter-governmental agreement between South Africa and Mali was signed in 2002 and the project to restore the Timbuktu manuscripts was officially launched in 2003.
The project has since been declared an official South African Presidential Project and has also been endorsed by the NEPAD as its first cultural project.
The agreement expresses the two countries' commitment to undertake a government-to-government project aimed at conserving the manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Centre and at rebuilding the library and archival infrastructure of the institute.
Speaking during the SA-Mali Timbuktu Project fundraising dinner, three years ago, President Mbeki said that African countries must contest the colonial denial of their history and initiate their own conversations and dialogues about their past.
"We need our own historians and our own scholars to interpret the history of our continent, and to undertake, with a degree of urgency, a process of reclamation and assertion," the President said at the time.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Bookshop for South African and World Literature
Do you know the isiZulu word for the elbow? If you didn't know that it is indololwane, you could be accused of being a foreigner. And you and your family could be in mortal danger. According to the Mail & Guardian this is the new pencil test.
Scenes of brutal and violent attacks have shocked and saddened all South Africans and the world in the last two weeks.
* Are the attacks all about xenophobia? * Chances are you know the word Kwere-kwere. * "No one hates foreigners like we do". * Is stopping migration the solution? * How much has poverty and frustration about broken promises got to do with it? ("We vote for the ANC, but get nothing"). * Is ethnic bloodshed next? * What are the issues raised by these attacks?
BOEKEHUIS
invites you to join us to a discussion about immigrants, refugees, being foreign, home and literature.
Veronique Tadjo and Simao Kikamba,
both authors of books on ethnic and foreigner hatred will discuss
Where: BOEKEHUIS,Cnr. Lothbury and Fawley streets, Auckland Park
When: Saturday 31 May 2008, at 12:30
RSVP: by Friday 30/05 on
011 482 3609 or boekehuis@boekehuis.co.za
About the books:
Going home by Simao Kikamba is a story told by a political refugee living in South Africa. It investigates the life of one particular immigrant, Mpanda from Angola, and his experiences of trying to make the best of being an unemployed foreign national in South Africa.
Going home is a moving debut novel, revealing the anguish of a man trying to survive in a country where nobody allows him to belong. A constant search for a home.
The Shadow of Imana by Veronique Tadjo is a reflection on the Rwandan Genocide.
Along with nine other African Writers, Veronique Tadjo was invited to visit Rwanda to bear witness to the genocide that took place in 1994 - wiping out one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during a hundred days of barbaric violence. A poet and a storyteller, Tadjo achieves the right tone that challenges our preconceptions. From the unexpurgated story of a young woman reliving the horrors of the massacre to dialogues between strangers meeting across the past, and finally to her own reflections.
About the authors:
Simao Kikamba was born in northern Angola in 1966 in the middle of liberation war against the Portuguese colonialists. At the age of two he emigrated to the neighbouring Zaire on the back of his mother. In 1992 he returned to Angola encouraged by the Bicese peace Accord between UNITA and MPLA.
In 1994 he was abducted in front of his pregnant wife. After his release he emigrated to Johannesburg in South Africa where he still lives and works. Going Home, which touches on the topics of xenophobia and displacement, is his debut novel. This novel won the Herman Charles Bosman Award in 2006.
Véronique Tadjo is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. She completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne and she received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993. Tadjo now lives with her husband and children in Johannesburg where she is the head of French Studies at Wits.
Saturday Voices is a series of readings and discussions by authors at Boekehuis
It normally lasts 45-60 minutes.
Scenes of brutal and violent attacks have shocked and saddened all South Africans and the world in the last two weeks.
* Are the attacks all about xenophobia? * Chances are you know the word Kwere-kwere. * "No one hates foreigners like we do". * Is stopping migration the solution? * How much has poverty and frustration about broken promises got to do with it? ("We vote for the ANC, but get nothing"). * Is ethnic bloodshed next? * What are the issues raised by these attacks?
BOEKEHUIS
invites you to join us to a discussion about immigrants, refugees, being foreign, home and literature.
Veronique Tadjo and Simao Kikamba,
both authors of books on ethnic and foreigner hatred will discuss
Where: BOEKEHUIS,Cnr. Lothbury and Fawley streets, Auckland Park
When: Saturday 31 May 2008, at 12:30
RSVP: by Friday 30/05 on
011 482 3609 or boekehuis@boekehuis.co.za
About the books:
Going home by Simao Kikamba is a story told by a political refugee living in South Africa. It investigates the life of one particular immigrant, Mpanda from Angola, and his experiences of trying to make the best of being an unemployed foreign national in South Africa.
Going home is a moving debut novel, revealing the anguish of a man trying to survive in a country where nobody allows him to belong. A constant search for a home.
The Shadow of Imana by Veronique Tadjo is a reflection on the Rwandan Genocide.
Along with nine other African Writers, Veronique Tadjo was invited to visit Rwanda to bear witness to the genocide that took place in 1994 - wiping out one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during a hundred days of barbaric violence. A poet and a storyteller, Tadjo achieves the right tone that challenges our preconceptions. From the unexpurgated story of a young woman reliving the horrors of the massacre to dialogues between strangers meeting across the past, and finally to her own reflections.
About the authors:
Simao Kikamba was born in northern Angola in 1966 in the middle of liberation war against the Portuguese colonialists. At the age of two he emigrated to the neighbouring Zaire on the back of his mother. In 1992 he returned to Angola encouraged by the Bicese peace Accord between UNITA and MPLA.
In 1994 he was abducted in front of his pregnant wife. After his release he emigrated to Johannesburg in South Africa where he still lives and works. Going Home, which touches on the topics of xenophobia and displacement, is his debut novel. This novel won the Herman Charles Bosman Award in 2006.
Véronique Tadjo is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. She completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne and she received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993. Tadjo now lives with her husband and children in Johannesburg where she is the head of French Studies at Wits.
Saturday Voices is a series of readings and discussions by authors at Boekehuis
It normally lasts 45-60 minutes.
Words Create Worlds: Cape Town Book Fair limbers up
The pages are beginning to turn in earnest in preparation for the third Cape Town Book Fair which runs from 14 to 17 June at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Fair Director Vanessa Badroodien has confirmed that trade stands, comprising publishers, booksellers and more are already sold out.
The fair drew 50 000 to the convention centre last year, the largest number of people to come through the doors for a convention. It's an event where book lovers, authors and publishers come together to celebrate and promote the written word.
Two major international authors have already confirmed they will be attending Alexander McCall Smith author of the Number 1 Ladies Detective series who says, "As an author, I find book fairs offer a wonderful opportunity to hear from readers. If you are making any mistakes, readers will tell you; if you're getting anything right, they'll also tell you. But they are also opportunities to have fun - to share enthusiasms that one has and to get together with like-minded people.
" I attend book fairs and festivals all over the world. The Cape Town Book Fair is one of the very best of these. Why? The readers and the organisers are enthusiastic, and it shows in the positive atmosphere. And it all takes place in one of the most beautiful spots on earth. What more could one ask?"
The other big name author coming to Cape Town is Marina Lewycka, a short history of Tractors in the Ukranian. She will join a host of local and other African writers as they talk about the power of words to create worlds in a programme that will offer more than 370 talks and debates, a bigger children's zone offering the opportunity for children to fall in love with books, and talks and debates by authors hosted by some of South Africa's favourite book reviewers and personalities.
The book fair takes place under the auspices of the Publishers' Association of South Africa and in co-operation with the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the largest book fair in the world.
Where your passion is crime writing, political thrillers, green issues, children's books, romance or a host of other topics you are sure to find the book that is a must have at the fair. You'll also have the opportunity to meet your favourite authors, attend book releases and kick back and enjoy yourself with thousands of people who share a love of reading.
Fair Director Vanessa Badroodien has confirmed that trade stands, comprising publishers, booksellers and more are already sold out.
The fair drew 50 000 to the convention centre last year, the largest number of people to come through the doors for a convention. It's an event where book lovers, authors and publishers come together to celebrate and promote the written word.
Two major international authors have already confirmed they will be attending Alexander McCall Smith author of the Number 1 Ladies Detective series who says, "As an author, I find book fairs offer a wonderful opportunity to hear from readers. If you are making any mistakes, readers will tell you; if you're getting anything right, they'll also tell you. But they are also opportunities to have fun - to share enthusiasms that one has and to get together with like-minded people.
" I attend book fairs and festivals all over the world. The Cape Town Book Fair is one of the very best of these. Why? The readers and the organisers are enthusiastic, and it shows in the positive atmosphere. And it all takes place in one of the most beautiful spots on earth. What more could one ask?"
The other big name author coming to Cape Town is Marina Lewycka, a short history of Tractors in the Ukranian. She will join a host of local and other African writers as they talk about the power of words to create worlds in a programme that will offer more than 370 talks and debates, a bigger children's zone offering the opportunity for children to fall in love with books, and talks and debates by authors hosted by some of South Africa's favourite book reviewers and personalities.
The book fair takes place under the auspices of the Publishers' Association of South Africa and in co-operation with the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the largest book fair in the world.
Where your passion is crime writing, political thrillers, green issues, children's books, romance or a host of other topics you are sure to find the book that is a must have at the fair. You'll also have the opportunity to meet your favourite authors, attend book releases and kick back and enjoy yourself with thousands of people who share a love of reading.
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