Litnet

"This book is an important literary contribution to the discourse on xenophobia in South Africa. With love at the centre, In the midst of it all demonstrates just how we’re all more alike than what we might think."

The charming village of Franschhoek will again be transformed into a literary hub from Friday 19th – Sunday 21st May 2023, when the Franschhoek Literary Festival celebrates its 16th year since inception.

When Thoko and her mom moves from the city to a plantation in Mpumalanga, she is totally out of her comfort zone. There is no mall in sight and she has to take a taxi with the other kids from the plantation to school.

The Philida Literary Award is awarded annually to a writer mid-career for an oeuvre of between three to five books of any genre. Here is the announcement of this year’s winner.

"The enthusiasm for the project from the local community, sponsors and writers is palpable. 'The goodwill of the community has been astounding, with the Simon’s Town Civic Association providing the start-up funding,' Attwell told me. And as his co-organiser, Darryl David, mentioned in his CapeTalk interview: 'Book festivals and scenery go hand in hand, and it doesn’t get better than Simon’s Town.'"

Bargain Books en LitNet kondig graag die wenners van die Kerskompetisies aan. | Bargain Books and LitNet are happy to announce the winners of the Christmas competitions.

"The apartheid security juggernaut met its Battle of Stalingrad in the townships of Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage in 1985 and 1986."

"This is indeed a novel not only about the quality of mercy, but with that quality itself."

"My thirty-minute bar mitzvah raises awkward questions around the genre of political memoir in South Africa, which has tended to celebrate 'the insistent, long-distance, sweet-as-blood siren-call of the Struggle'."

If your goal for 2023 is to prepare your own collection for publication, we trust that these suggestions will help you plan and enjoy the work ahead.

This year marked milestone after milestone for us. I’m grateful to all the authors who have trusted us to publish their manuscripts. To the agents and authors who have sent us manuscripts for consideration, and publishers who have sent us books to consider rights deals.

"The inaugural Gauteng International Book Festival, held in Soweto on the 11th of December 2022, surpassed all expectations. It became a resounding success with its director, Lorraine Sithole, calling it 'a positive beginning'."

Amazwi South African Museum of Literature invites you to a conference exploring all aspects of children’s literature, from picture books to young adult fiction. The 2023 conference will be a hybrid event with both online and in-person components. Virtual access will be through the Zoom platform. Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted to Crystal Warren by 13 January 2023. 

"The scenario of this book was in my subconscious. The challenge was writing a story of love, hope and resilience within it."

The dao of Daniel by Lodewyk G du Plessis, translated by Michiel Heyns, was launched on Thursday, 8 December at Exclusive Books at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. The author was in conversation with Tan Twan Eng.

"From Fanon to Robert Sobukwe and Biko, these are prototypes of what Richard Wright called his 'split position' and 'double vision', which a Western-educated black man born in the Anglo-American-oppressive zeitgeist has to deal with."

"While never sugar-coating the 'pynlike en onmenslike' practice of enslavement, Eunice Visser’s massively researched epic is a humane and haunting testimony to the unique contribution of the Cape slave experience to South Africa’s national life – the old pulse of a 'multikulturele sosiale milieu'."

"I hope my book has opened the way for other people to write about the really difficult subjects of our past, when both sides committed atrocities, when the subject matter is regarded as taboo."

The JIAS Writers’ Workshop is open to African writers who work in fiction (long and short form), creative non-fiction, playwriting, screenwriting and poetry.

"I have seen the returning MK soldiers, how disappointed they are in what is happening in our country."