Mervyn Sloman with Margie Orford, Hedley Twidle and Lesedi Molefi at the Open Book Festival (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
“Words don’t help with grief, but presence does,” said Alex Latimer, author of the short story “Death and rooibos”, included in his collection Love stories for ghosts. In the story, Death takes a young boy’s mother away and remains behind in the child’s life well into his adulthood – a strange, friendly, comforting presence having a cup of rooibos whenever he visits. Alex was one of the well over 100 authors speaking at this year’s Open Book Festival, which took place last weekend between 6 and 8 September at the Homecoming Centre in Cape Town. The session he was part of, “Love and other toxins”, also featured Shubnum Khan and Sven Axelrad, and was expertly chaired by Dela Gwala. I have loved all three of these authors for a long time, but collectively they stole my heart during that afternoon.
Dela Gwala with Shubnum Khan, Sven Axelrad and Alex Latimer at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
The weekend of the Open Book Festival forced me to think a lot about life and death. And about heaven. This year, the brilliant scholar, writer and feminist Pumla Dineo Gqola officially opened the festival on Thursday evening at The Book Lounge, and called it her “slice of heaven”. For many of us regulars, that is precisely what the Open Book weekend is: a slice of literary heaven.
Glowing from the energy and anticipation of the official opening, I walked over to the city hall, where I met with friends to listen to solo violinist Anthony Marwood play with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance was sublime. Sitting in the audience that night, I lost all sense of time and place and felt an inner calm I hadn’t experienced in a long while. It felt like another slice of heaven.
Open Book Festival books at the Book Lounge in Cape Town (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
The first events of the literary festival started at 10:00 am the next morning, and I was ready! I went to listen to “Chosen family”, a panel about friendship, with Gothataone Moeng, Sven Axelrad and Buntu Siwisa, and with Anna Stroud chairing. Anna recently joined the Karavan Press family by publishing her debut novel, Who looks inside, with us, and listening to her engage with the other authors made me feel doubly happy that she chose to submit the book to us. I also had a sense that the kind of bonds and friendships often formed between authors at festivals is what makes so many of us feel like we have become part of something greater than just a publishing industry.
At the opening of Open-Book Festival 2024 (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
The Open Book Festival provides a space for participants to make themselves vulnerable, to share generously and to have difficult conversations that are necessary but rare. Mervyn Sloman, the festival’s director and the owner of The Book Lounge, emphasised at the opening how crucial it has become after the lockdown to include on the programme not only many local authors, but as many authors from across the continent as possible. I had the pleasure of speaking to two of them during the only session I chaired at the festival, “Writing sisters”. I joined local Zibu Sithole (I do … don’t I?), Damilare Kuku (Only big bumbum matters tomorrow) from Nigeria and Hamza Koudri (Sand roses) from Algeria to discuss the complex sibling relationships in their novels. What struck me during the conversation was that no matter how different our backgrounds might have been, when we began talking about our own and fictional siblings, we discovered how universal the dynamics that govern those relationships are.
Karina Szczurek at the Open Book Festival 2024
In the afternoon, I left the festival to attend the memorial of a young man who died much too early. His mom is a beloved member of the writing world. He left behind two siblings and a large community of mourning people, who, at his request, wore the most colourful outfits to the occasion, which was one of the most moving celebrations of a life I have ever witnessed. As Hedley Twidle said during a festival panel the next day, there are diagnoses that “take you to the end of words”, and yet the family and friends who loved this super-talented, wise, compassionate and brave young man found the words that honoured his incredible legacy. I sat among them, in awe of their own beautiful courage, and knew that memory was a heaven where loved souls continue to live on. Leaving the church, I understood once again that life is unpredictable, and that we have to live and cherish it – and the people we have the privilege of sharing it with – fiercely.
Karen Jennings with Hamza Koudri, the 2022 Island Prize runner-up from Algeria (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
On my way back to the last event of the festival that day, “Conversations with Mohale” – a highlight every year that always makes me want to celebrate life and words – I stopped at the Woolies in Palmyra to buy myself something for a quick dinner later in the evening. Walking into the store, I was suddenly surrounded by giants – with muscles and tattoos and funky haircuts. I am quite tall and hardly ever feel short among people, but I felt tiny in comparison. I looked around and noticed, along with most of the other shoppers, that I was in the middle of a group of the All Blacks. Despite my sombre mood and cheeks stained with tears, I could not help but smile. And the way the famous rugby players were greeted in the shop and, in return, engaged with everyone who wanted an autograph, a picture or a short chat, put a gigantic smile on my face. They were gracious to a fault. I watched it all unfold between the shelves of milk, frozen peas and freshly pressed orange juice, and was tempted to ask for a photograph myself, but I didn’t. I wanted to remember the warm atmosphere of the encounter, the joy that it generated in complete strangers. I did not need a photograph to keep the moment alive in my mind. But I did want to express my gratitude. I stood with Mark Tele’a in the queue. I turned to him and said, “I just want to thank you guys for making me fall in love with rugby many, many years ago.” He nodded and smiled kindly. “Thank you for saying that, ma’am,” he said. I continued to the Homecoming Centre, knowing that I would be supporting the Springboks all the way during the test the next day, but I felt content that I was able to acknowledge how, when I started watching rugby, the All Blacks had made me recognise the poetry of the game.
Karina Szczurek with Hamza Koudri, Damilare Kuku and Zibu Sithole at the Open Book Festival 2024
That evening, Mohale Mashigo spoke to Damilare Kuku, Pumla Dineo Gqola and Zukiswa Wanner, and their conversation, celebrating unruly women, was another generous slice of heaven. Mohale’s event is one of three festival highlights that I never miss, the other two being “Writersport” and “Director’s cut”, both with Mervyn in the driving seat. The latter started promptly at 6:00 pm on Saturday evening. The first thing Mervyn asked was, “So, what’s the score?” Someone from the audience shouted, “We are book people here!” “Speak for yourself,” was the director’s reply. The score was too close for comfort at that stage, but by the end of the event, not only were we enlightened and entertained, but the Springboks had won the Freedom Cup.
Pumla Dineo Gqola and Mervyn Sloman at the opening of the Open Book Festival 2024 in Cape Town. (Photo: Karina Szczurek)
The next day, Damilare Kuku went home to Nigeria with this year’s Writersport Cup, but, like all the other amazing participating authors in this year’s Open Book Festival, she left us feeling like we had all won. Her presence at the festival was exhilarating. On Sunday, on top of all this literary magic, to my delight, Andrew Brown’s The bitterness of olives was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, and I won a wonderful weekend at the Blaauwberg Beach Hotel in the What’s wrong with June? (the latest novel by Qarnita Loxton) lucky draw.
Karina Szczurek with Anna Stroud at the Open Book Festival 2024
Ending the festival on an absolute high, I decided to draw the weekend to a close with Rescue remedy, a play written and performed by Roland du Preez, at the Toneelhuis. I was in the audience with friends and spotted a few other festivalgoers, who – like me, I suppose – were not ready to end the weekend’s exciting conversations just yet.
I met Roland just after arriving in South Africa 19 years ago. They are the child of dear friends. Seeing them on stage, with their passion for theatre and the written and spoken word so clearly articulated and shared in a play that centres around the themes of queerness, parent-child relationships and coming of age, flooded me with gratitude for all the safe spaces in which art can guide us through challenging conversations and leave us filled with love, the ultimate slice of heaven.
Also read:
Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Alex Latimer, author of "YOLO"
This is what a literary festival in Cape Town should look like
Time of the Writer festival 2023: Born-frees curate a festival of critical reflection and optimism