BOOK Southern Africa

Home Away Preview: Sydney, Australia: "Redundant" by Sarah Britten

by Amanda on 19 Mar 2010   |   

Zebra Press brings you a preview of the exciting new collection of SA writing on hours and cities edited by Louis Greenberg, Home Away – to be launched in April. Watch out for the first pages of each of the 24 stories, which will be run in hourly sequence every day.

It’s 3 AM and Sarah Britten takes us to Sydney, Australia:

Home Away: 3 AM (Sarah Britten)

Book details

• Home Away by , edited by Louis Greenberg
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770220720
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Home Away Preview: Between Liberec and Rokytnice nad Jizerou, Czech Republic / Amsterdam: "Stowaway" by Richard de Nooy

by Amanda on 18 Mar 2010   |   

Zebra Press brings you a preview of the exciting new collection of SA writing on hours and cities edited by Louis Greenberg, Home Away – to be launched in April. Watch out for the first pages of each of the 24 stories, which will be run in hourly sequence every day.

It’s 2 AM and Richard de Nooy has us between Liberec and Rokytnice nad Jizerou, Czech Republic and Amsterdam:

Home Away: 2 AM (Richard de Nooy)

Book details

• Home Away edited by Louis Greenberg
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770220720
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Book Launch: POWA's Breaking the Silence: Stories from the Other(ed) Woman

by Thando on 18 Mar 2010   |   

POWA and Fanele are pleased to invite you to the Johannesburg launch of Breaking the Silence: Stories from the Other(ed) Woman at Xarra Books.

Women who defy traditional norms are often subjected to discrimination, violence and exclusion. Sometimes, as in the case of activists, sex workers and artists, and just about any woman who resists the prescribed mould of what it means to be a woman, the defiance is intentional.

Other times, however, the defiance is a by-product of the often difficult task of survival, or even the quest to being true to oneself. Despite the many judgements, prejudices and multiple violations they face, women continue to work, live and strive to love according to their own design.

This, the fifth highly successful annual POWA Breaking the Silence collection, contains the three categories of poetry, short stories and personal essays. They describe the experience of living a life that defies prescribed boundaries, a life that deliberately, or as a consequence of survival, transgresses society’s defined norms.

Please join us for the launch:

Event Details

• Date: Friday, 26 March 2010
• Time: 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
• Venue: Xarra Books, 1 Central Place, Jeppe Street
  Newtown
  Johannesburg | Map
• Refreshments: or add your own
• RSVP: Nehwoh, nehwoh@powa.co.za, 011 642 4345

Book Details

• Breaking the Silence: Stories from the Other(ed) Woman by the POWA Women’s Writing Project 2009
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781920196271
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Home Away Preview: Triolet, Mauritius: "The Expedition" by SA Partridge

by Amanda on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Zebra Press brings you a preview of the exciting new collection of SA writing on hours and cities edited by Louis Greenberg, Home Away – to be launched in April. Watch out for the first pages of each of the 24 stories, which will be run in hourly sequence every day.

It’s 1 AM and SA Partridge takes us to Triolet, Mauritius:

Home Away: 1 AM (SA Partridge)

Book details

• Home Away by , edited by Louis Greenberg
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770220720
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

A Divinely Delightful Evening with Oprah Book Club Author Uwem Akpan

by Tracey on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Ringing laughter is what most guests will remember from the launch of Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them. Visiting South Africa for the Time of the Writer Festival, Akpan was able to make time for his Joburg fans at the Nelson Mandela Square Exclusive Books this week. Akpan, a Catholic priest, delighted launch guests with his self-deprecating attitude and genuine warmth.

Say You’re One of Them is, of course, the collection of short stories that caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who made it one of her Book Club selections. Akpan says the resulting attention has allowed him to travel around the world – mostly through writers’ festivals invites. He speaks of writing as a “gift” – something that he needed to appreciate by acting on. When writing his book, he was often at the mercy of Nigeria’s on again, off again electricity supply, but he persevered. He wrote mainly at night on local computers while attending to his seminary studies and parishioners during the day. Asked for advice by an aspiring author in the audience, he said, “If you want to write, write!”. He said that a writer must be “ready to sit alone in that room, tell their friends not to visit and stay in that space”. Saying he “stumbled” upon his gift, he spent many years developing it including going to a writers’ school.

During the launch he said he’d originally aspired to be a columnist, writing a package of 4 opinion pieces which he sent off to various newspapers to try his luck. Feeling down and depressed when he didn’t receive a positive response, he eventually tried fiction – asking himself, “What do I have to lose?”. He was lucky, with several publishers keen to pick up his work. As a newly developing author he shared how he balked initially at being published because he didn’t feel he was ready. Finally, a year later, his short story, “My Parents’ Bedroom”, was published.

Asked how real the stories he writes are to him he replied that first he writes, then he researches. For him, “research is not the story”. But he does spend time sending his work out for comments and feedback, particularly when it comes to checking cultural details and honouring the local dialogue or “patois”. It is clear that although not biographical, the stories and children he writes about move him greatly. “I intentionally wanted to write about things that bothered me,” he said. For the future, he would love to write a novel but that is something he will need to learn how to do.

It was clear that the crowd at this launch – which comprised people from all over the world, as it happened – were only too happy to enjoy a touch of the Oprah magic that now surrounds Father Uwem Akpan.

Facebook gallery

Book details

• Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780349120645
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

World Cup stories from South Africa

by Henrietta on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Elf:Fußballgeschichten aus Südafrika (Football Stories from South Africa) is a new anthology from German publisher Peter Hammer Verlag, timed to coincide with the World Cup year.

Edited by Manfred Loimeier, the book features 12 football-themed stories by local authors. It includes translated works by Diane Awerbuck, Lauren Beukes, Patrick Cairns, Greig Cameron, Kerry Leighton, Sarah Lotz, Maakomele Mak Manaka, Siphiwe ka Ngwenya, Vuyiswa Nodada, Xoli Norman, Henrietta Rose-Innes and Sifiso Zimba.

The publisher’s (Google-translated) website notes that the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is “an opportunity to gather stories from young South African authors, which cast a spotlight on football and the social framework in which this event will be held. [On] a life full of petty crime, AIDS and drugs, but also irrepressible zest for life and a playful ease in dealing with the burdens of societal change.”

Home Away Preview: Midnight, Nairobi: "To Kill a Politician" by Zukiswa Wanner

by Amanda on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Zebra Press brings you a preview of the exciting new collection of SA writing on hours and cities edited by Louis Greenberg, Home Away – to be launched in April. Watch out for the first pages of each of the 24 stories, which will be run in hourly sequence every day.

We start with midnight, Nairobi and Zukiswa Wanner:

* * *

Home Away: Midnight (Zukiswa Wanner)

• Not loading? View on Scribd

* * *

Book details

• Home Away edited by Louis Greenberg
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770220720
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Pre-London Book Fair Special Offer on Modjaji Books new titles

by Colleen on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Modjaji Books has several new titles coming out in April and May. If you would like to pre-order any of these titles at a special discount price, here’s your chance. It’s also a way of supporting an indie publisher.

The titles are:

Arja Salafranca’s collection of short stories The Thin Line.
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R145.
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R125

Meg Vandemerwe’s collection of short stories This Place Called Home
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R145.
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R125

Jane Katjavivi’s memoir, Undisciplined Heart
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R170
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R150

Small Publisher’s Catalogue 2010 (Africa)
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R150
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R100

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers new collection of poems, The Everyday Wife
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R130
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R110

Modjaji’s Book of Bed Short Stories
Recommended Retail Price in stores – R150
Modjaji Pre-Order price including postage where relevant: R130

Special Offer if you order all 6 of the titles you pay R690 (an extra R50 off, the already reduced price)

Check out all Modjaji Books titles here ….

Go on, you know you want them and you will be supporting independent publishing in a big way!

For more information about any of the titles click on the links above.

Book Launch: Home Away, Edited by Louis Greenberg

by Amanda on 15 Mar 2010   |   

Save the date! The Louis Greenberg-edited “book of cities and hours”, Home Away, will be launched on Thursday, April 15 at The Book Lounge in Cape Town.

This unique and captivating collection is a snapshot of South African writing today: emigrant and immigrant South Africans, living at home and away.

Here’s the brilliant line-up of contributors, the hours they’ve been assigned to and the cities they write about:

Midnight: Zukiswa Wanner (Nairobi)
1 am: S.A. Partridge (Triolet)
2 am: Richard de Nooy (Amsterdam/Rokytnice nad Yizerou)
3 am: Sarah Britten (Sydney)
4 am: Naomi Nkealah (Mainz)
5 am: Phillippa Yaa de Villiers (Havana)
6 am: Colleen Higgs (Kampala)
7 am: Moky Makura (Lagos)
8 am: Sarah Lotz (Maun)
9 am: Louis Greenberg (Ushuaia)
10 am: Fiona Snyckers (Oxford)
11 am: Lauren Beukes (Tokyo)
noon: Ted Botha (Los Angeles)
1 pm: Liesl Jobson (Victoria / the air)
2 pm: Jassy Mackenzie (Moscow)
3 pm: Makhosazana Xaba (Dakar)
4 pm: Jo-Anne Richards (Patmos)
5 pm: Henrietta Rose-Innes (Chanchan)
6 pm: Kathryn White (London)
7 pm: Karina Magdalena Szczurek (Salzburg)
8 pm: Ivan Vladislavic (Oklahoma City)
9 pm: Helen Moffett (Fairbanks)
10 pm: Rustum Kozain (Royaumont)
11pm: Victoria Burrows (Hong Kong)

Many of the authors will be on-hand at the launch to read from their selections. We look forward to seeing you there!

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 15 April 2010
• Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
• Venue: The Book Lounge, 71 Roeland
  cnr Buitenkant
  Cape Town | Map
• RSVP: booklounge@gmail.com, 021 462 2425

Book Details

• Home Away, edited by Louis Greenberg
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781770220720
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Bella Matambanadzo Reviews White Gods, Black Demons by Daniel Mandishona

by Ben - Editor on 15 Mar 2010   |   

Verdict: carrot

A new publication from Zimbabwe’s Weaver Press, comprising “ten sharply polished stories”.

Something of a boom has occurred in the area of record making about this period of life in the country that has driven texts dealing in either fiction or fact, perhaps even propaganda, to the bookshelves. Judging by literary produce, it is a country that has become all things to all people.

To add to this treasure trove is Daniel Mandishona’s ‘White God, Black Demons’, an anthology of ten short stories published under the Weaver Press stable. Its magic is that it feels startlingly familiar, whatever your politics may be. Each portrait in the 110-page collection is the product of prodigious observation and research, that resembles a return to the 16th century Every (wo)man theatrical genre.

What a reader will cherish is that there is a kind of fidelity about the stories that leaves you knowing it to be true. The characters, and their experiences cut a little too close to the bone. Where else has there been an independent candidate who promises a ‘new dawn’ ahead of a presidential contest held in March, whose results are held back to April?

• Complete review at Pambazuka News

• White Gods, Black Demons homepage

Book Details

• White Gods, Black Demons by Daniel Mandishona
  EAN: 9781779220875
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!