Litnet

"In Paris at midday on a day in May we emerged from the métro at the Place Maubert. In that tiny square the Huguenots were burned at the stake, I’d read, and I remarked to him that the screams must have been awful."

"What will stay with me for a long time after reading this multilayered collection is the deep sense of curiosity which runs through A book of friends – it is an expression of care which the authors and artists share with the man they pay tribute to."

"A few years ago, I travelled to my hometown – by bus, because I couldn’t muster enough courage to take my car to travel all those many kilometres on my own."

"Now running to just over 200 pages, and wearing his immense learning much more lightly, the author’s new Concise history is more of a tapas-trek through the topic than his original pièce de résistance."

"this perhaps a glorious destiny 
scattered stardust in an infinite Salty Sea"

"I don’t see a hopeful future. I see the back of my little girl’s head the last time I was here. The red rash on her neck."

"The impressive and morally valuable account that Hassim has produced should, in my view, be honoured as a classic of anti-apartheid literature. It is a complex work rich in meaning and serves as an act of commemoration, but one which never preaches or flags in its breathtaking pace."

"On 1 January 1827 English became the only official language in the courts. Evidence in Dutch or Afrikaans was translated. The British jury system was imported and members of the jury were required to be proficient in English."

“People don’t read crime if they don’t have hope.” So said Jessica Powers, head of Catalyst Press, quoting the South African author Andrew Brown, during a panel discussion hosted by Micheal Sears on Wednesday 9 December 2020.

On Sunday 6 December 2020 an international panel of authors and publishers took part in a discussion on the joys of #ReadingAfrica. View the discussion on LitNet’s YouTube channel.

"Mzobe is a consummate storyteller, and it is easy to lose oneself in the tales he shares so compellingly. My hope is that we won’t have to wait another decade for his next book to hit our bookshelves and hearts."

"The name Pretorius sent a shock of frigidity into Nella’s heart. She shuddered. She thought of her blonde husband and what she had heard about a blonde man with the Pretorius girl."

"Hierdie mooi, insiggewende teks is deur ’n mediese dokter vir sy kleinkinders geskryf. Die idee was aanvanklik om seker te maak dat hulle nie onnodig vir hulle eie veiligheid hoef te vrees nie."

Due to the surging number of COVID-19 cases in the Western Cape, the manager and owner of Liberty Books and the management of the Peregrine Farm Stall have decided to cancel the launch event that would have taken place on 10 December 2020.

"When Mpisi Mpisani travels to his home village for the burial of his mother and a visit to his first wife, he is anxious to hurry back to Johannesburg."

"I just began to feel excited about the possibility of bringing African literature of all genres to a North American readership – not scholarly work, which I think has some real champions, but crime novels, thrillers, literary fiction, children’s fiction and graphic novels."

"I am your son, and we are alike in so many ways. Yes, I like boys, but only to play with. But girls, girls I love. Only girls."

Join us to celebrate our new home and engage with our speakers who will ponder the question “What’s so blêrrie belangrik ‘bout books anyway?”

"Hazara, taken from the name of Conyngham’s lost dynastic family sugar farm in KwaZulu-Natal (in turn taken from the name of his grandfather’s regiment in the British Indian Army), tackles the torment of confused identity in the ambivalent context of the old Anglo-South African relationship."

"This novel is no less than an act of extraordinary grace by the author."