Litnet

"Two new books add to the published oeuvre of South Africa’s pioneering psychoanalyst, Wulf Sachs [who] was out to demonstrate two things. First, that black urban migrants were in a terrible plight, not of their making, and one with which they were lamentably ill-equipped to cope. And, secondly, that the exciting new thought package of Freudianism successfully straddled the apparent crevasse between Western modernity and African traditionalism."

"Instead of one person speaking, many did. Instead of long speeches, we heard numerous poets reading for ten minutes each."

The 2025 Island Prize, the fourth year it has been running, has once more attracted nearly 200 entries from across the continent, and the range of subjects, styles, and genres has been greater than ever before. Now, rather than one winner, we have had to name two: Night dancer by Zabu Wamara of Uganda, and In the valley of bones by Kristien Potgieter of South Africa.

Calling all birds of a feather to bookmark together at this year’s Kingsmead Book Fair. Kingsmead College will host the 13th annual Book Fair on Saturday, 24 May 2025 at Kingsmead College campus in Melrose, Johannesburg from 09:00 to 18:00.

"It’s a daring book.  He shows – and tells – with every word a song’s note, an ingredient that stirs flavours within, and the result is both delicate and rich."

"It’s like a batsman playing his last test and scoring a hundred in the second innings. Or a bowler ending with 10 wickets in his last game."

We are delighted to announce the 2025 Island Prize shortlist.

Writer and alumna of the Jakes Gerwel/Oude Leeskamer residency programme, Lebogang Mazibuko, talks with our guest writer, Sihle Qwabe, about his writing process and the life experiences that inform his writing. Join us on 6 May from 15:30 to 17:00 for this conversation in Jannie se Leeskamer in exploration of Qwabe’s debut novel, The Resurrection.

"I asked if I could interview him about directing before he returned home, and he readily agreed. I opened a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau and turned on the tape recorder. I was 32 and Athol was 49."

Die wenners van die onderskeie pryse en toekennings van die Andrew Murray Desmond Tutu-prysfonds is nou bekend.

"Decima is a triumph of moral and aesthetic ambition. By entwining a species’s extinction with personal and national identity, Venter crafts a story that is simultaneously urgent and timeless. Its greatest achievement lies in making readers feel the weight of ecological collapse not as abstract data, but as the sum of countless individual tragedies, human and animal alike."

This arrangement promises to bring increased global visibility to Modjaji authors while maintaining Modjaji’s distinctive editorial vision and established local presence.

"If you thought Apeirogon, published in 2020, was the most pertinent book McCann could have written for our era, wait until you read his recent book, Twist, which came out this month."

We are delighted to announce the 2025 Island Prize longlist for a debut novel by an African writer. The Island Prize is an annual competition held by Holland House Books. It offers both a small monetary reward and assistance in navigating the difficult world of the publishing industry, such as working on the winning manuscript with the author and assisting them in approaching agents and publishers.

The Commonwealth short story prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 Member States.

"If we mourn what needs to be mourned, we may find enough empathy to understand the legitimacy of calls for setting things in order that are based on natural justice. Only then, perhaps, we shall stop being angry with each other and begin healing from our historical traumas, and, per chance, even celebrate our history as part of our collective identity instead of as something that embarrasses us."

How do we know who we are? Upending the reader’s expectations of a memoir, Whyle then explores the violence and madness of apartheid society as the narrator passes through boarding school and university and takes his first steps to become a writer. ... At the end of history, on the shores of a blue bay, the voices of the past can be heard as we await the arrival of the barbarians – or the baboons, whoever comes first.

"But the main reason I do it is to see the joy on children’s faces. ... That unadulterated smaaail is because you’ve just gifted a young child a book. Entrance is free!"

"Vir Suid-Afrikaners bied 21 Voices ’n spieël vir hul eie verlede en ’n uitdaging vir die hede. Dit vra: Hoe kan ons, wat internasionale steun tydens apartheid ontvang het, nou solidêr wees met ander?"