Litnet

"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 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."

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."

"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."

"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."

"I have to admit it was really easy. The name Wordfest is such an iconic brand, and there exists so much goodwill towards the festival."

Karavan Press was recognised for its book In silence my heart speaks by Thobeka Yose, winning the $20,000 top prize. The Prize was presented by Algeria’s Minister of Culture and Arts Azzedine Mihoubi.

"To make sense of things for yourself and then for others is a joyous burden, the purpose of many of these writers’ professional lives. They write for collective repair. We owe these diplomats a debt we cannot repay, except by buying their books. Reading their books. Talking about them. One audience member who attended every panel she could, commented quietly to me, 'Note to self: be like them.'"

"Art is the place I go to process emotion. Literature, reading and also writing are like flashing a light in the dark."

"The reader as medereisiger, as fellow traveller, is encouraged to page on and on to fulfil the almost breathless expectation created by the thematically arranged geographical sections."

Wordfest 2025 will take place in Makhanda from 19 to 20 September 2025.

"'Standing still' was first inspired by an image that existed in real life: a vehicle broken down on the side of the M3 in Cape Town with a horse box attached to it. As I drove past, I noticed the horses peeking out at the traffic passing by and I couldn’t help wondering what the story was."