Litnet

The Midlands Literary Festival takes place during the first weekend of September 2023 at the Yellowwood Café in Howick. Here is the programme.

"I’ve always been much better at writing in the first-person narrative; being able to visualise my characters through their own eyes makes it easier for me to know what their next move will be or how they’ll react to a situation."

Travellers, explorers, meanderers ... come to the launch of The fall by Hans Pienaar.

"This fast-paced dystopian thriller, written by Di Mier, is fiction – not all events are based on reality. However, it is written in such a clever way, and some facts are so close to reality, that it all seems true."

"When the remains of Endurance were found, Knowledge Bhengu was the captain of Agulhas. Bristow-Bovey tells, in a sympathetic way, how a young black boy from rural KZN ended up being a marine captain of note. The book is researched comprehensively, its narrative style topically eclectic and lyrical tonally. The book is a mixture of natural sciences, geography, polar adventures and historical facts that are told in accessible language, in chapters with personal memoirs and other curiosities."

"[The Copyright Amendment Bill] will do inestimable damage to our law of copyright and related areas. Perhaps worst of all, if made law, they will cause immense harm to the very people they purport to be assisting, namely the authors, the composers, the artists and generally the creative persons who seek to produce new and better works and make a livelihood from doing so."

The first volume is already being shared by school children in South Africa. They choose sketches from the revues of the 1980’s and give them life. ... Volume Two could raise similar questions for readers with humour, surprises and the enjoyment of the Mandela years. No wonder it was being launched on Madiba Day 18 July 2023.

"The ability to see ourselves in our myths allows us to be critical of ourselves and the world as we know it. This encourages us to envision a better world, in which we too are better versions of ourselves in our interactions with one another. At the root of it all are empathy and transference."

"I realised the characters, incidents and interactions were all derived from real-life experiences – you just cannot make that *insert swear word here* up. From the first sentence I was right back there in a government hospital."

“I was inspired to write this story after reading about the Aversion Project, a medical torture programme in South Africa during apartheid which identified gay soldiers in the South African Defence Force and forced them to submit to ‘curing’ their homosexuality. The doctor in charge later fled to Canada.”

"And maybe A place to call home might have been produced by my subconscious, trying to work through that grief. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and leaving Howick made the life I lived there just so vivid. In many ways the story of my Egyptian geese is the story of my life."

"It is a beautiful, flowing work that echoes both the serenity and tempestuous character of the ocean."

"It is difficult to read about all the injustice that accrued and how some missionaries were funded by slavery, but it is also a beautiful story about people who were able to see beyond race, culture, beliefs and societal status."

"With the help of Maggie’s enterprising grandchildren they start a Boomers’ Rights Campaign which catches the attention of the press. They demand freedom of movement, among other things."

"Is this a good book? Yes, it is a bloody good book. Is it a masterpiece, as was A Man of Good Hope? No, its descriptions are, but its analysis is sometimes flawed. Would I recommend it as a purchase and as a read? Without a doubt."

"I’ve found that as my career has progressed, I get the chance to work with more and more incredible people. For me, the fun is making a book or a comic or a novel that is better than what I could do on my own."

"I have a rough idea in my head of where places are, but what I will find there is a discovery each time and I can know only when I put it to the page. The reader and I find things together."

If South Africa’s mainly capitalist economy was thriving, with high growth, low unemployment, and rising living standards, the ANC could not justify expanding state ownership or control.

"This is how Cardo argues: he admits the truth, then airbrushes it to excuse his subject’s failures."

"This story came about through my love for spirituality and my fascination with the divine powers intrinsic to humans, animals and nature. I come from a long line of diviners and healers, and also sinister sorcerers, who all propelled me, involuntarily, to write this story."