Books and writers
Information about the latest books and the people behind them
Using the Pen for Justice: How writers transform society
2014-03-25 "On Saturday 29 March, journalist and radio personality Nancy Richards will be in conversation with four authors around the theme 'using the pen for justice, how writers transform society'."
Tugging towards discovery
2014-03-10 Mark Winkler's An Exceptionally Simple Theory (of Absolutely Everything) is “an intensely absorbing and unapologetically apolitical tale”.
African Library: Intimate Strangers
2014-03-04 Intimate Strangers has connections with social anthropological research. Annie Gagiano explains.
Exclusive Books Summer Sale 2014
2014-02-18 Exclusive Books Summer Sale has over 115,000 books, averaging at R60 a book. It will begin with a Fanatics-only preview at all stores from 5pm on the 25th of February.
Bloody Satisfied – edited by Joanne Hichens
2014-01-24 “Five years later, in 2013, Hichens has once again edited and collected various storytelling voices under the title Bloody Satisfied: short.sharp.stories. The collection is the inaugural anthology produced in conjunction with the National Arts Festival. Will you be bloody satisfied after reading these stories?”
South African Flowering Trees – A botanical adventure through history
2014-01-14 Many books have been written about trees, but South African Flowering Trees – a botanical adventure through history makes a good effort at giving a complete picture.
What Hidden Lies: Crime from up close
2014-01-10 "In Greek mythology, Persephone is the queen of the underworld. In the brilliant debut novel by celebrated scriptwriter and script editor Michelle Rowe, detective Persephone (Persy) Jonas ... is the plucky young woman tasked with navigating the underworld of a community where little is as it appears."
The Spiral House by Claire Robertson
2014-01-03 “Claire Robertson’s extensively researched debut novel, The Spiral House, comes after thirty years spent working as a journalist. The novel has garnered praise from various quarters, unsurprisingly, since it seems to engage every nerve and fibre of one’s body and mind, so absorbing is its arc.”
Reader's review: Black Widow Society
2014-01-03 "If anyone dared to say that the burgeoning South African crime fiction scene was light on inventiveness, over-politicised, almost exclusively cornered by Cape writers and lacking in contributions from black female writers, then Angela Makholwa offers a decidedly tart response with her latest novel, Black Widow Society."
African Library: Harare North by Brian Chikwava
2013-12-18 Chikwava’s Harare North ... presents readers with an evocation of conflicted Zimbabwean identities ... and with making lives for themselves in Britain, where so many of their compatriots have inserted themselves ... (T)hey have mockingly re-named London 'Harare North' (Johannesburg being known as 'Harare South')."
Skinned by Antjie Krog
2013-12-04 "The poet thus becomes the text, inhabits the text and becomes part of the articulations and rhythms of the text." Franci Vosloo discusses why Skinned is a good representation of Krog's oeuvre and the essence of Krog's poetics.
Announcing the 2013 European Union literary award winner
2013-11-28 Participating European Union members and Jacana Media are delighted to announce Penny Busetto as the winner of the 2013 European Union Literary Award for 2013 .
The War at Home: An interview with Bill Nasson
2013-11-12 "Some (black people) were loyal and trusted servants of Boer families, others were participants in the running of the camp system. You could say that there were divided loyalties. Or, that for some there were no loyalties – they were just doing their best to get through the war."
2013 ACT Lifetime Achievement Awards: Winner profiles
2013-11-12 “The Arts & Culture Trust named author Elsa Joubert as the 2013 winner of the ACT Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature, sponsored by Media24 Books, in Johannesburg today.”
Finding the writer where the stories begin
2013-11-11 An interview with award-winning South African author Linda Rode about the award-winning book In die Nimmer-Immer Bos / In the Never Ever Wood.
October by Réney Warrington: Photos of book launch
2013-11-11 Réney Warrington’s October (published by Protea) was launched on 8 November 2013 at Bibliophilia in Woodstock, Cape Town. Réney Warrington was in conversation with Izak de Vries. Hannelie Coetzee shared her photos of the evening with LitNet.
Review: For the Mercy of Water
2013-11-04 "Inspired by Jayes’s experience as a newspaper journalist covering events in the Middle East, For the Mercy of Water is concerned with the ways in which control over access to water can be used as a political tool."
Blossoms of the Savannah by HR Ole Kulet
2013-10-29"Ole Kulet evinces profound admiration of most aspects of Maa lifestyle and tradition, and the fact that he writes this novel from an insider’s perspective strengthens the validity of his balanced representation of a fraught issue and a valuable African culture."