Litnet

"I also wanted to write about an adult love relationship, and in the Cape Town context, it seemed authentic to include an intercultural relationship which raised questions of identity."

“The shortlisted books always reflect what is happening in our society and this year it’s clear that the political has become the personal, and that we have to look at what happened to find out who and where we are today."

You are invited to the launch of Get up! Stand up! in Cape Town, where author Mark Heywood will be in conversation with Redi Thabi.

Your are invited to the launch of A handful of earth by Simon Bruinders on the 10th of May, where he will be in conversation with Hamilton Wende.

"'Now' is all that any of us certainly have, and to waste a moment of it, either enslaving someone else or being held in bondage for someone else’s benefit, is a crime against humanity."

"Helize van Vuuren describes her essays in the field of Bushman studies as a monograph. Perhaps. It is, however, the wide-ranging and delicately intelligent work of a polymath."

"We sense the word 'consciousness' describes levels of human being, but we can’t quite put our finger on what exactly these levels are. The whole concept is like a mirage – there, but untouchable; real, but somehow unknowable."

You are invited to the launch of Bending the rules by Rafique Gangat in Johannesburg, where he will be in conversation with Tim Cohen, editor of Business Day.

"The Afrikaans language, Joubert’s instrument of literary creation, is under siege and in the process of being dispensed with as a university language of instruction, signalling the eventual loss of its higher functions. It may be that this translation will one day be the only way to access the autobiography of a courageous writer who, in 2002, was considered one of the best writers on the African continent."

"So, in the cemetery in Philippolis, I pretended I was the Queen, and all the people, the little children lying beneath the slabs and angels, the doves and little lambs, were all my loyal subjects. They loved me and obeyed me. I loved them and ordered them about. I was the Queen of the Free State."

"Brief as it is, and with some of the naïveties of a first novel, Mukasonga’s narrative packs a powerful punch without exploiting the Rwandan tragedy for merely melodramatic effects."

You are invited to the launch of The shallows by Ingrid Winterbach in Cape Town, where she will be in conversation with Karin Schimke.

You are invited to the launch of Queen of the Free State by Jennifer Friedman on 23 May (Cape Town) and 25 May (Johannesburg).

You are invited to the Cape Town launch of Cult Sister by Lesley Smailes on 18 April 2017, where she will be in conversation with Shado Twala.

"Cult sister is my memoir of the ten years I spent travelling around America with a nomadic, very fundamental Christian group. I try to paint an honest word picture about life in the strange group from my point of view."

"At the heart of this absorbing portrait – within a ribcage that contains much else – lies the enigmatic contradiction of Smuts, a revolving mask that his latest biographer does a good job of lifting."

"How to open the door and Flame and song are books about 'being in the world and not defeated by it'. In both, it is often that which is not said that is delivering the strongest punches."

Breaking news: "We have lodged our formal announcement with Unesco that Durban is going to bid to become South Africa’s and Africa’s first Unesco City of Literature." Read it first on LitNet.

"As a woman of her time, as an Afrikaans person of her time, and even as an MP of her time, she never bent with the breeze – she was 'what the willow does to the wind'."

Ralph Mathekga in conversation with Theuns Eloff at the launch of Turning point.