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Cake sitting to ward off AI

Minnie Desaivre Opinion 2025-09-30

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

Reader’s impression: A blow to the head by Andries du Toit

Dawn Garisch Books and writers 2025-09-29

"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."

Press release: Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo wins the 2025 Best of Caine Award

LitNet Books and writers 2025-09-29

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.

Press release: South African Literary Awards Celebrate 20 Years of Honouring the Nation’s Storytellers During Heritage Month

LitNet Books and writers 2025-09-25

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

Jana Deyzel New writing 2025-09-25

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

Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Power: interview with Antoinette Ntuli, author of "The scent of pap and skop"

Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Antoinette Ntuli Books and writers 2025-09-23

"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."

"Coming home, to an outpost of the Middle World": Remembering Breyten at the Ghent Centre for Afrikaans and the Study of South Africa

Yves T'Sjoen, Breyten Breytenbach Books and writers 2025-09-22

"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."

The Routes of Sound 2025: Brett Bailey tells LitNet’s readers why they shouldn’t miss the show

Brett Bailey Lifestyle and entertainment 2025-09-22

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. 

Press release: Purple Mountain Heritage Festival 2025

LitNet Lifestyle and entertainment 2025-09-22

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.

Press release: Reimagining the archive in the post-truth era, first call for papers

LitNet Books and writers 2025-09-22

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.

Invitation to the screening of In search of Olive Schreiner, a film by Lisba Vosloo

LitNet Books and writers 2025-09-22

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

Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Power: interview with David Medalie, author of "A recreated world"

Lynn Joffe, David Medalie Books and writers 2025-09-18

"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."

Memories

Salomé Borngräber New writing 2025-09-18

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

Stellenbosch University Faculty of Theology building: the real history, the politics of ongoing forgetting and the shadows of the past

Moegammad Tahier Kara Opinion 2025-09-17

"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."

PenAfrican: Sir Herbert Baker: a biography by John Stewart – a book review

Mphuthumi Ntabeni Books and writers 2025-09-17

"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."

Xolisa Ngubelanga’s Flamebook: Community theatre in Gqeberha

Izak de Vries Lifestyle and entertainment 2025-09-17

"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."

Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Power: interview with Ross Ian Fleming, author of "The k word"

David Mann, Ross Ian Fleming Books and writers 2025-09-15

"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 by Tanya Zack: a book review

Chris Heymans Books and writers 2025-09-15

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

The importance of oral history in southern African historiography

Mphuthumi Ntabeni LitNet25-skrywersberaad 2025-09-11

"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."

Karina Szczurek talks to Naomi Meyer about a recent prize-winning book published by Karavan Press.

Naomi Meyer, Karina Magdalena Szczurek Books and writers 2025-09-11

"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."

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