by Amanda on Feb 21st, 2012
This March, Umuzi will publish The Miracle of Crocodile Flats, the brand new novel by Jenny Hobbs:
Godforsaken Crocodile Flats is the last place on earth where you’d expect any marvel, so when Sweetness Moloi believes she saw the Virgin Mary there – all nice and brown like real people – who’s going to believe her?
But lo, the good news spreads like wildfire, and soon all hell breaks loose. Every sect and faction want in on the action, there is fierce competition for the elusive glory, and hordes of journalists, pilgrims, and the just plain curious flock to the troublesome village. In this small corner of the Rainbow Nation, so desperately in need of a miracle, jealousy tumbles over hypocrisy to end up – miraculously – in a state of grace.
About the author
Jenny Hobbs was born in Durban. She is the author of five novels, Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary, The Sweet-Smelling Jasmine, The Telling of Angus Quain, Video Dreams and Kitchen Boy, and four works of non-fiction. She lives in Franschhoek.
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by Amanda on Feb 21st, 2012
Lucas Ledwaba recently interviewed Piet Byleveld who, despite his retirement, has been kept busy promoting Hanlie Retief’s book, Byleveld: Dossier of a Serial Sleuth, and even investigating crimes.
Byleveld speaks about becoming the recent subject of headlines when convicted murderer Donovan Moodley applied for a retrial in the South Gauteng High Court in January. During his submission, Moodley accused Byleveld of framing him, something which Bylevled dismisses without a worry.
Says Byleveld, “From the word go, he co-operated with me. He made a full confession, pointed out the firearm he used and where he burnt the clothes. I interviewed other possible suspects and I have no doubt he did it”.
If criminals don’t retire, then why should a good cop? As long as there is crime, and Brigadier Piet Byleveld, 61, is still around, there will be no rest, retirement or not.
Rest is a strange word for Byleveld, the cop who attained legendary status for the detective work that saw him help send notorious serial killers, robbers and murderers to long terms behind bars.
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by Amanda on Feb 17th, 2012
Mike Nicol, author of Payback, Killer Country and Black Heart, was recently interviewed by Michael Sears for the blog Murder is Everywhere, where he answered questions about his latest book, Monkey Business: The Murder of Anni Dewani, which is compiled from news stories and reports on the Anni Dewani murder trial.
Nicol spoke about the structure of the book and how he wanted to experiment with building a non-fiction narrative out of news stories. Sears says that even though the book is a set of quotes, it “flows well and is hard to put down”. Nicol says that this is a testament to the reader’s ability to create linkages and a narrative out of disparate information:
You chose to structure the book as a set of quotes about the case from newspapers and internet reports and comments. What made you choose that format?
Two things, really. The first consideration was journalistic. I wanted to see if one could build a non-fiction narrative out of snippets of news from a variety of sources. When I was thinking about this book, I kept coming back to the point that the narrative already existed on the internet but in such widely dispersed places: websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter. If I could collate material from all these sources could a narrative be constructed? After a bit of experimentation it seemed that it could and on the basis of the first 10000 words Umuzi decided to commission the book.
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by Amanda on Feb 16th, 2012
Dit gebeur nie dikwels dat ‘n skryfdebuut ‘n uitgewer laat regop sit nie, maar dít was die geval met SJ (Fanie) Naudé se kortverhaalbundel, Alfabet van die voëls.
Só het Frederik de Jager, uitgewer van Umuzi, gisteraand die bekendstelling van Alfabet van die voëls by The Book Lounge in Kaapstad geopen. Die feit dat heelparty gerekende skrywers, soos André Brink, Marlene van Niekerk en Michiel Heyns na die debutant kom luister het, het verdere krag aan De Jager se woorde gegee.
Naudé se bundel, wat in Oktober verlede jaar verskyn het, het reeds in die media oorvloedige lof van skrywers, resensente en kritici soos Eben Venter, Ronel Scheffer, Cilliers van den Berg en Louise Viljoen ontvang. Viljoen het met Naudé by die bekendstelling in gesprek getree.
Op haar vraag oor sy skryfproses het Naude geantwoord dat ‘n byna “koorsagtige outomatisme” tot sy skryfwerk lei. Hy stem saam met JM Coetzee se siening dat die kreatiewe proses byna soos ‘n epileptiese aanval is wat van die skrywer beheer neem.
‘n Verhandeling oor Coetzee se uitsprake rakende kreatiwiteit het die een helfde van sy Meestersgraad in Kreatiewe Skryfwerk onder leiding van Marlene van Niekerk en Willem Anker by die Universiteit Stellenbosch uitgemaak. Die ander helfde was die manuskrip vir Alfabet van die voëls.
Naudé het sy jare lange werk as internasionale regspraktisyn in Londen verlaat en na Suid-Afrika teruggekeer spesifiek om hierdie kursus te volg. “Volgens my is daar min kreatiewe skryfkursusse wêreldwyd wat by dié een kan kers vashou,” het Naudé gesê.
Sy verblyf in Brittanje, waar hy bitter min met Afrikaans en kreatiewe skryfwerk te doen gekry het, het dalk, volgens hom, tot sy byna maniese skryfproses aanleiding gegee. Daar was ‘n “dringendheid” by Naudé om die verhale neer te skryf, om vele aspekte in ‘n enkele verhaal te verpak en ook om by die einde van elke verhaal uit te kom.
“Die verhale wat ek skryf, is byna soos ‘n kompakte roman,” sê Naudé. Sy kortverhale is baie langer as die moderne weergawes in hierdie genre en herinner eerder aan die pre-moderne verhale van byvoorbeeld DH Lawrence.
In die verhale kom daar ook dikwels gedrewe of selfs obsessiewe karakters voor, wat volgens Naudé dui op die idee dat ‘n byna “monomaniese fokus” velang word om iets blywend of betekenisvol in hierdie wêreld teweeg te bring.
“Maar miskien sal my skryfwerk in die toekoms meer besadig wees,” het Naudé gesê. Manies of besadig – hoe Naudé se skryfproses ook al in die toekoms sal lyk, met Alfabet van die voëls het hy reeds iets blywend en betekenisvol geskep.
* * * * * * * *
Carolyn Meads het regstreeks vanaf die bekendstelling met #livebooks getwiet:
* * * * * * * *
Facebook galery
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by Amanda on Feb 3rd, 2012
Die Leigh Matthews-moord was onlangs weer in die nuus toe Donovan Moodley, wat in 2005 aan Matthews se moord skuldig bevind is, gevra het dat die saak herverhoor word. Die appèl is in die hooggeregshof in Johannesburg geweier.
In Byleveld: Dossier van ‘n baasspeurder vertel Hanlie Retief hoe Moodley deur Byleveld vasgetrek is. Lees in die volgende uittreksel hoe die baasspeurder dit reggekry het:
Piet Byleveld tel die dossier met die foto’s op. Leigh. Sy lê op haar rug. Haar regterarm skuins agtertoe gebuig.
Dit lyk of sy net daar in die veld neergesit is. Hier, tussen twee boompies en ’n miershoop, waar die son van 21 Julie 2004 oor haar geskyn het.
Sy lê nakend op haar rug, oë oop, haar lang hare los, skoon, gesprei in die wintergras. Blond op blond. Hare wat sy ’n dag voor haar dood spesiaal laat mooi maak het vir haar mondigwordingspartytjie.Haar vel lyk soos Italiaanse marmer. ’n Spinnekop het ’n fyn web tussen
haar dye gespin. Veldmuise het aan haar een kuit begin knaag.
“Dit lyk asof sy slaap. Rustig slaap. Asof daar nie vrees in haar is nie, nè?” sê Piet en sy stem is skielik sag.Hy vee met sy vinger oor haar gesig. “Arme Leigh. Sy was net ’n dag lank 21.’
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by Amanda on Feb 1st, 2012
Umuzi en The Book Lounge nooi jou hartlik uit na die bekendstelling van Alfabet van die voëls deur Fanie Naudé.
Die skrywer sal op Woensdag, 15 Februarie 2012, met Louise Viljoen by The Book Lounge in gesprek tree.
Sien jou daar!
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by Amanda on Jan 30th, 2012
Jenny Crwys-Williams hosted Peter Harris, author and human rights lawyer, on a recent Best of Jenny Crwys-Williams show. Harris spoke about the death of ANC lawyer Bheki Mlangeni, an event which is novelised in Harris’ award-winning book, In a Different Time:
Podcast with Peter Harris:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
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by Amanda on Jan 25th, 2012
Crime blog Murder by Type has released their list of 10 Best Books reviewed in 2011. The only two local authors to make it onto the list are Umuzi authors Jassy Mackenzie, for Stolen Lives, and Wessel Ebersohn, for The October Killings. Murder by Type recommends them as “books that went in a different direction or addressed a societal problem”.
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by Amanda on Jan 19th, 2012
In the following extract from The Loss Library, Vladislavic describes how discovering a mysterious drawing in an apartment in Stuttgart led to him writing a short story called “Mouse Drawing”. While “Mouse Drawing” was lost in transit from Stuttgart to Johannesburg, together with two boxes full of Vladislavic’s papers and books, it “begins again” in this piece of the same name:
On a midsummer morning, three or four months into my residency in Stuttgart, a drawing appeared in my apartment.
The sunlight in the south of Germany is a gentle critic. I was standing at my window reading through the previous night’s work, letting the light soften its rough edges, when noticed something on the white melamine surface of the table beside me. Curious, I stooped closer. It looked like a drawing. Some of the lines were faint and curly; others were emphatic, shooting off at angles like fragments of a graph. Together they made up an image as tangled as a ball of hair in the bristles of a brush. My first thought was that a previous occupant of the apartment had scarred the surface with a knife during a careless cut-and-paste job. But when I rubbed at one of the lines, graphite came off on my fingertip.
The drawing made no sense. All I could say for certain was that it had been done very recently. I used the table every day and something so striking could not have escaped my attention for long. Where on earth had it come from?
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Image courtesy Seagull Books
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by Amanda on Jan 12th, 2012
Matt Merritt interviewed Isobel Dixon about her new collection of poems, The Tempest Prognosticator, which has been called “a virtuoso collection” by JM Coetzee. Dixon discusses her preference for weather, animals and the quirks of human invention, as well as some of the writing that inspired her work. She names Damien Hirst’s Requiem, Eugene Marais’s The Soul of the Ape and The Soul of the White Ant, Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa and Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana as influences.
Read the interview, which comes with three poems extracted from the book: “Upupa Epops”, “Only Adapt” and “Paradox”.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this collection was the vividly African flavour of many of the poems, both in subject matter and in the language used. How often do you get back to South Africa, and do you find that an essential spark to your creativity?
I’m glad you can feel Africa in it, even though there’s a wider ranger of themes and settings than in the more overtly homesick and family-focused A Fold in the Map. There’s a lot more London, Yorkshire, England in The Tempest Prognosticator, partly reflecting how long I’ve lived and worked on this island. But South Africa remains essential to my life and writing. I go back twice a year, for publishing work and to see family and friends, and just to be at home in the Karoo for a while. My mother still lives in the house where I and my sisters grew up, and this old house and my home town Graaff-Reinet remain crucial places for me. I was thinking of it as I wrote as a harbour or dry dock and the phrase ‘refreshment station’ keeps popping into my mind – what the Dutch East India Company called the settlement at the Cape, a place for sailors to pick up fresh water and fruit and vegetables on their long sea journeys. A way to prevent emotional scurvy, perhaps…!
Paradox
There’s no telling what
will make the heart leap, frog-
like, landing with a soggy plop.
Love startles, makes a mockery
of us, and yet we lie awake
at night and croak and croak for it.
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Photo courtesy Saltpublishing
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