Litnet

"Most of these stories are set in Botswana, which in itself is refreshing since there has been a scarcity of stories in that setting since the death of Bessie Head."

The Caine Prize for African Writing, an esteemed annual award honouring outstanding African writers, is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2024 edition. The five shortlisted stories were carefully selected from a pool of 320 entries originating from 28 African countries.

You are invited to the book launch of What’s wrong with June? by Qarnita Loxton. Eva Mazza will be in conversation with Qarnita Loxton on 1 August, Wordsworth Books, Stellenbosch Square at 18:00 for 18:30.

The 19th South African Literary Awards ceremony will take place on 7 November 2024. Earlier that day, the 12th Africa Century International African Writers Conference celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the African Union-declared International African Writers’ Day and 30 years of South Africa’s freedom and democracy.

The 2025 AVBOB Poetry Competition officially opens for entries on 1 August 2024. This prestigious contest invites poets from all corners of South Africa to submit their original works in any of the South Africa’s 11 official written languages. With generous cash prizes awaiting the winning entries, this is a golden opportunity for talented wordsmiths to shine.

"No, he is not a rock star lawyer, as are some of those mentioned at the top of this note, but he is instead a humbler man who limited his financial ambitions to work rather with the needy and the under-resourced. He did great work here, at no great profit. The best of South Africa is built on such people making such sacrifices."

This year’s festival promises to be more than just a celebration of literature; it will serve as a vital platform for meaningful discussions. The lineup includes a wide array of talented writers, reflecting the rich tapestry of African literature.

"The action scenes and literary descriptions of the ocean with all its vicissitudes are vivid – from the perspectives of both a submariner and a sailor on a surface vessel. The text is replete with historical references and technical details of life on board, and is aided by a glossary of naval terms at the beginning of the book."

As South Africans prepare to celebrate Mandela Day on 18 July, the AVBOB Poetry Project is acknowledging Nkateka Masinga, a Mandela Washington Fellow and an award-winning writer, poet and scholar whose original voice pays tribute to the leaders and storytellers who came before her.

"Meintjes devotedly nurses his grape and malt, the pool table and his favourite bars, while around him the grand spectacle of life unfolds, and the stoicism of Long Street is revealed on a nightly basis."

This month, the AVBOB Poetry Project asked the award-winning South African poet Caitlin Stobie to reflect on what aspiring poets can do to channel more surprising, richly imagined words. Read the three creative writing tips Caitlin shared and notice how your experience of writing is transformed when you apply them to your own practice.

"Gaza has become the centre of the universe, the same way Soweto was the centre of the universe." A book discussion and video interview with Haidar Eid, author and professor in postcolonial studies and postmodern literature at al-Aqsa University, Gaza City.

Commando is more than a historical document; it is a literary masterpiece that transcends time. With prose that captures both the brutality and the beauty of war, Reitz weaves a narrative that resonates with authenticity and passion. As relevant today as when it was first penned, Commando has become a South African classic and stands as a testament to the indomitable human spirit in the face of adversity.

Sanjana Thakur: "Writing stories is a way for me to accept that Mumbai is a city I will long for even when I am in it; it is a way to remake ‘place’ in my mind. I feel that the Commonwealth Short Story Prize offers that chance up to all of us: to be a writer who is from ‘somewhere’, to write from inside a legacy of colonialism and migration. I am so incredibly grateful to the prize for recognising that stories are not written in a vacuum." 

"The topic of adoption by same-sex couples is a very important theme in the novel. Some of the questions posed and the fears experienced by the protagonist and his husband, I could relate to, like the vulnerability and also the sense of being scrutinised."

"I find this fast-becoming-popular genre of interrogating history through filtered personal and family experience to be a very pleasing literary direction in our country. You’ll not see me complain if we eventually replace the political novel with it, because not only does it gently provide us with a platform to reckon with our (national) past, but it gives us tools for higher consciousness to map up our personal lives also, which is what literature is supposed to do."

"Teachers who have used Sharkey in their classes will feel very comfortable moving on to Marked. It is a solid classroom reader. It has enough flesh on the bone to tick all the boxes of the curriculum, while offering the children a fast-paced, enjoyable read."

"Abantwana bayakuvuyela ukufundelwa ngolwimi lwabo." | "Children enjoy being read to in their own language."

"Indeed, the book is richly rooted in the textures, sights and sounds of the city in the ’70s and ’80s. Whether it is bell-bottoms, Salusa 45, dwarves in Orange Grove gardens, Abdullah Ibrahim, student parties at Crown Mines, Bob Dylan, Beyers Naudé, MacGyver or The jewel in the crown, the book provides details which will trigger memories for anyone who experienced those years."

John Kani: "This white man is here to suck their brains out!" Athol Fugard, the Grand Man of South African Literature, will turn 92 on Tuesday, 11 June 2024. Rory Riordan is writing a biography of the man who earned the title of "the foremost active playwright in the English-speaking world".