Litnet

"All I saw was this one word: Rejected. My eyes blurred, and I couldn’t even read further to see why."

"Things are not what they seem, and this book gave me more insights about the conundrums we face as a society in a gentler way than receiving a blow to the head."

The Caine Prize for African Writing is delighted to announce that Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo has been awarded the 2025 Best of Caine Award for her short story, "Hitting Budapest". Marking the Prize’s 25th anniversary, the Best of Caine Award is an honorary prize celebrating the most outstanding winning story from the Prize’s 25 year history.

The South African Literary Awards (SALA) proudly mark their 20th anniversary in 2025, a historic milestone that coincides with South Africa’s Heritage Month this September.

"I am from extraordinary ancestral cloth, woven from true love and kindness.
Childhood laughter a song I still hear."

"I would describe my story as magical realism, because I am integrating fantastical elements into a realistic setting to help me reflect upon economic and cultural power."

"In other words, we are experiencing a new constriction, a new closing down of possibilities, and once again, I believe, younger writers and younger poets and younger troublemakers and younger Middle World-people must rise up and start fighting to open that path."

For those drawn to storytelling through song, this promises an evocative, enriching night of lyrical exploration with some wonderful poetic voices. Listen to a recording of Brett Bailey, elaborating on the fascinating performances coming up at Spier. 

The second installment of last year’s hugely popular Purple Mountain Heritage Festival (PMHF), which seeks to "open hearts, minds, and the doors to the humanity in each of us", takes place in the rural Western Cape town of Porterville on 23 and 24 September 2025. Entry to all events and the food offerings are free.

This conference invites historians, archivists, anthropologists, musicologists, artists, environmental scientists, natural scientists, information systems professionals, scholars and practitioners from a wide range of other disciplines, activists, and publishers, media practitioners and content creators to explore the evolving role of the archive in shaping collective memory, public trust, and historical knowledge in the post-truth era.

Lisba Vosloo’s biopic In search of Olive Schreiner will be screened at the Amazwi Auditorium on Wednesday 24 September at 14:00.

"In this time in which we see about us so many brutal forms of power, crushing everything in their path like a juggernaut, the 'recreated world' Tally strives for is a countervailing force which draws its power precisely from the fact that it refuses the wider, dystopian pattern and its ostensibly remorseless logic."

"It’s where love is captured
Where dreams come true
Create many memories
They’ll bring happiness to you"

"I approach this space through the work of counter-narration, driven by my interest in critical heritage and its possibilities for restitutional justice and reparations. For me, the most meaningful form of reparation is truth-telling."

"What bugged me most about the book was Stewart’s interpretive framework. It is shaped by an uncritical acceptance of imperial ideology, even as he softly mocks it sometimes."

"Should a student be expelled from a college, a page is torn from that book. That page loses its place, but the entire book loses part of its story. It was a wonderful metaphor that needs to be explored even more."

"We live attention-deficient lives. Reading a short-story-sized narrative is often the most enjoyable 15 minutes of my daily routine. The twist in a tale can make your day."

"The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a port city reaffirms Tanya Zack’s talent for telling a compelling real-life story."

"Today, oral history is no longer a mere preliminary to written records; it is a paradigmatic epistemology capable of conveying grief, contradiction, cosmology and lived memory. It preserves what empire seeks to forget, affirming that memory and voice remain more enduring than ink."

"When I phoned Thobeka after the ceremony, I could feel her joy radiating across the entire continent, and I cannot wait until we can meet again and celebrate together. I hope that it can happen at Woman Zone Cape Town, because that is where our journey began."