Darryl David talks to Naomi Meyer about the upcoming Richmond Madibaland Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday, 2 November in Richmond.
Darryl David (Photo: Menán van Heerden)
Darryl, you are known for organising book festivals throughout the country. For any of our readers who are not familiar with your festival, please provide some insight into how you put your book festivals together?
Naomi, with Madibaland and BookBedonnerd I work slightly differently from other festivals. For this festival I aim for a truly international programme. Thus you will see we have writers from Ireland, India, Canada , England and New Zealand on the programme. In years gone by we've had writers from Turkey, Greece, Russia, Macedonia and Iran, and many others on the programme. We make no secret of the fact that for Madibaland we have international ambitions. And I think it's fair to say we are the only international book festival on the South African literary calendar. In three years we have had three Booker Prize winners on the programme, Damon Galgut being one of them. The great Ben Okri opened our festival last year. And the great Irishman John Banville will open our festival this year. And having Afrikaans translations of Dutch novels and poetry also strengthens the international feel.
On to this international template we have grafted the BookBedonnerd way. Here we try to get the country's top writers. But, we built our name on finding the writers out there who never get invited to the mainstream festivals. When you fuse these two elements, I would like to think you have a marriage made in heaven.
Please tell our readers about the authors on this Madibaland Richmond Festival programme. To which authors’ events do you look forward most?
Mia Ardene's Mermaid fillet. Never read anything like it before. It upset me for days. Etienne van Heerden's A library to flee. You know that novel is prophetic. One of these days the Special Branch are going to take Etienne in for questioning. 😊😊🤣
And then John Banville. Wow. What a writer. His novel The sea is unforgettable. You can see why it won the Booker Prize all those years ago. And his detective novel Snow. I loved it.
Anthony Sattin also has a most delectable book: Nomads. It traces the nomadic impulse in mankind over hundreds of years. A book that is making waves overseas.
I loved Ena Jansen's novel. I loved Abigail George's novella Letter to Petya Dubarova. I have to admit I had not even heard of Dubarova. But a relatively unknown author like Abigail enhanced my bookshelf. Books humble you, Naomi. You realise how little you know through books. Pie-Pacifique Kabalira-Uwase will open our festival with a truly inspirational story of escaping from Rwanda and building a life in South Africa.
There are so many. But Irish writer John Connell's The stream of everything took my breath away. I said on Facebook it was the greatest book had I ever read. And I stand by that.
Kindly let us know some practicalities for any of our readers who would like to attend this festival. Thank you, Darryl!
Practicalities. If you are not lucky enough to make it to Richmond, you only need to worry about the following link:
That single link will bring you into the Book Town Richmond’s Headquarters where you can hear every speaker. FOR FREE!
If you do, however, want to join us, please visit our website www.richmondnc.co.za for a list of all the guesthouses. There might be a room or two still available.
Looking forward to an unforgettable festival
Kommentaar
Wonderlik! Voorreg om te kon deelneem.