Litnet

"Warn them," Dean repeats. "If you use AI, your work might not be protected." "Don’t do it," Downie says. "Respect your own work. Respect your fellow writers’ work."

"Cape Town can be proud of many attractions, but the Open Book Festival is a gem that is a rare example of what the rainbow nation and Ubuntu are. This festival is the highlight of our year not only as writers, readers and artists, but as a community. Even if it is your first time attending, you know that you will find your way into the literary community and meet new people."

Her debut novel was Rootless. Her second novel, Half lives, is the subject of this interview.

He moves between Cape Town and Europe, tracing the footsteps of his dispossessed peoples who once sought justice in a language not their own. In his journey from past to present, Phila carries ancestors, ghosts of former selves and the grief of his wife’s death.

What do two poets, united by poetry across the ocean, have to say about our place in the world and the urgent need to transform it in our image?

The narrative unravels the identities and traumatic histories of both victim and killer, while tracing the web of stakeholders tied to the building — its residents, owners, police, and local government officials — each with their own legal and political stakes in its fate.

"Point blank captures dramatic moments with textured description, as turning points are reached and South Africa moves into a new dispensation."

Wordfest 2026 takes place on Friday 18 September and Saturday 19 September at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature in Makhanda. Here is the programme.

Jy word uitgenooi na die boekgesprek op die 17de September 2026. Dit beloof oudergewoonte ’n onvergeetlike aand van uitsonderlike wyn, heerlike kos, samesyn uit die boeke en voortreflike gesprek te wees. Hier is nog inligting.

"Overall, it is a deeply affecting, accessible and significant memoir, with particular strength in its evocation of Somali family life, displacement, intergenerational memory and the complicated relationship between cultural inheritance and individual freedom."

"What is unique, though, is that each of the delightful pictures throughout the book has been handstitched in a form of embroidery known as appliqué."

"Ek vertel in dié boek ook ’n staaltjie uit ons kinderjare: hoe ek op agtjarige ouderdom ... na die plaaslike Weense Volksschule aan die oorskuif was sonder dat ek Duits kon praat, en ontdek het dat die woorde vir 'olifant' in al drie tale amper dieselfde was. Daaruit het ek geleer dat taal nie net ’n plek vir verskil is nie, maar ook van gemeenskaplikheid – beide werklik, in ’n gedeelde woordeskat, en iets denkbeeldigs, in die gevoel van geborgenheid wat sulke raakpunte skep."

"You want to add to the overall story, rather than just show exactly what is being described in the text. One of the main differences with the graphic novel is that you have more room for nuance. A moment can be expanded over a number of panels. We can work through a thought or a feeling with the characters in real time."

"Palestinofication is for everyone, even those who wholeheartedly disagree with my position. I hope those in support find comfort, and I hope those who are neutral become enlightened."

"Before we hit the ground by Selali Fiamanya is a literary novel about migration, grief, memory, belonging and return. The narrative opens with a Ghanaian family in Scotland packing up a house after the death of their son, Elom. Rather than using bereavement as melodrama, Fiamanya presents grief as something embedded in ordinary life routines – the wiping of kitchen tiles, packing Tupperware, preserving photographs and deciding what belongs in storage, memory and the bin. The emotional restraint is one of the novel’s greatest strengths."

You are invited to this conversation on the 27th of August 2026. Herewith more information.

The committee of the Ingrid Jonker Prize gladly announces the winner of this year’s prize.

"Perhaps that is why reading Homer after university felt less like discovering a foreign classic than recognising a distant relative for me. I was not entering an unfamiliar world. I was returning to one I had known all along."

The following collections of poetry were selected by the judges to be on the shortlist of the Ingrid Jonker Prize 2026.

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