Litnet

"Will you now share your space with all the great writers you so admired and loved."

You are invited to an exclusive launch of The lucky ones by Alistair Mackay at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on 8 April 2025. You’ll be able to get your hands on a copy before anyone else. Plus, you can get your book signed by the author, who will be in discussion with Kelly Smith.

"The loss of spaces designed to cultivate and encourage free expression is arguably the main reason for the decline of the spoken word community as a transformational literary force. But how did slam end up monopolising the spoken word scene?"

In 1913, a secretive American millionaire, who lived on the top floor of the famous Carlton Hotel, had a crazy idea: to make movies in Johannesburg. Hollywood on the Veld is the never-been-told-before story of the rise and fall of the strangest and most unique movie empire ever.

"This was my first time ever attending a book festival conducted in all the official languages of the Western Cape (English, Afrikaans and Xhosa, but mostly Xhosa). The main objectives of the Ibuyambo Book Festival are to revitalise, preserve and promote indigenous languages of the Western Cape. It made me extremely proud."

How the three independent asset managers of Coronation, Investec (later Ninety One) and Allan Gray, dubbed the CIA, came to dominate and continue to dominate the South African asset management industry, particularly the pension fund market.

"Toni Viva Muñoz’s debut nonfiction children’s book for nine- to 11-year-old readers tackles a big issue with as much poise and enchantment for its intended young readers, as for conveying the gut-punching complexities of life on the border to adult readers."

"Books on the Bay this weekend in Simonstown was a pretty special literary festival. Run with great vigour, insight and love by Darryl David, David Attwell and Karin Cronje, it brought together 30 South African and international writers and matched them with expert interviewers."

Anet Ahern will be in conversation with Stephen Cranston at the book launch of The Mavericks on 19 March at Exclusive Books, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

"Only Pinter, winner of the Nobel Prize, can match this all-round skill set – but Pinter operated in London, with possibly 50 theatres in walking distance from his home. Fugard operated from Port Elizabeth."

"Quiet time with the president is a memoir that shows a country unfolding through the lens of a frontline medical worker and the decisions he felt forced to make during an important time in history."

"I wanted to love A thousand eyes on you, but it tries to be too many things at once, and in doing so becomes a kaleidoscope of almosts."

"Athol believed in me and my anger and I believed in him and his cool temperament and that the use of words is a more powerful weapon of change."

As an artist, his words carried the weight of history and the depth of lived experience. As a playwright, his legacy continues to inspire generations of playwrights who strive to tell stories with courage and conviction.

"Athol was spending increasingly longer periods working away from South Africa, but he always returned home to write. He told me he couldn’t write anywhere else. He had to be at home."

"Can Xue’s writing operates on the logic of dreams, and as such, the experience of reading I live in the slums is one of continuous disorientation."

On Sunday, 23 February 2025, the life and work of Breyten Breytenbach – who passed away on 24 November 2024 – was celebrated at the Breytenbach Sentrum in Wellington. Herewith the text version of Francis Galloway’s talk as part of the event.

The programme for Amazwi’s 2025 Literature Heritage Ecology Conference has arrived. There is a great range of papers from a wide range of disciplines.

"Theft is the first novel Abdulrazak Gurnah has released since winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021. Epic in a true sense of the word, it follows the intertwining lives of three Tanzanians, Badar, Karim and Fauzia, and their coming of age in the fast-changing world of Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania."

The 2025 edition of the Adam Small festival was staged in Pniël from 21 to 23 February. Festival impresario Darryl David shares his thoughts and photographs.