Archive for January, 2012
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:
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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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by Amanda on Jan 11th, 2012
Read an excerpt from Justin Fox‘s The Marginal Safari: Scouting the Edge of South Africa, in which Fox describes beginning his journey on a rather ominous note, having just learned that his father is ill. Despite the setback of this news, Fox says that the journey ahead is not just an “escape”, but a form of taking responsibility – “like getting married or buying a first home”.
Read the excerpt, courtesy Namibiana Buchdepot:
The foreshore traffic light is red. across the intersection stands the convention centre my father designed. Up the street is his office. Behind the convention centre an elevated freeway feeds out of the city. Beyond that lies the open road and my dream of travelling round the edge of the country Except my father is ill. And it weighs on me. I left my apartment beside the lighthouse a few minutes ago, turned onto Beach Road and drove past trawlers heading west into the murk. A 10000-kilometre, anticlockwise journey around my homeland lies in store. It’s chilly outside and a strong wind is blowing off the Atlantic, a good day to be leaving the Cape of Storms. Restless, anxious about an uneventful slide into my late thirties, hungry for adventure – or colourful change at least – I’ve been craving the road for some time. Cape Town, for me, has grown predictable. I, too, have grown predictable here. Although it is a kind of escape, this journey seems like a form of taking responsibility, like getting married or buying a first home.
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by Amanda on Jan 6th, 2012
SJ Naudé het reeds heelwat lof ontvang vir sy kortverhaalbundel, Alfabet van die voëls, waarmee hy verlede jaar gedebuteer het. Lees ‘n uittreksel uit die verhaal “Oorlog, bloeisels”, wat in die bundel verskyn, om te sien waarom resensente gaande is oor hierdie nuwe stem in die Afrikaanse literatuur:
’n Brose respyt, ’n wapenstilstand. Hy maak sy ma se bed met haar beste linne op. ’n Handgeweefde kombers, spierwit. Goed wat sy sedert haar troudag nog nooit gebruik het nie. Tot dusver slaap sy nog op die lakens waarop sy pa ’n paar jaar vantevore gesterf het.
Hy was haar hare. Elke halfminuut moet sy eers rus. Hy hou haar handspieël voor haar terwyl sy hare borsel en grimeer, vir die eerste keer in ’n week. Sy rus tussen elke beweging. Hy vee liggies met sy voorvinger oor haar bowang om die onderlaag in te skakeer. Sy dom vingers word slimmer.
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by Amanda on Jan 6th, 2012
Kathryn White has written a guest post for David Chislett’s blog, offering a glimpse into her writing process. During the effort that brought us her new novel, Things I Thought I Knew, White says she found her characters doing unpredictable things, but learned to “let them do what they want”.
White finds interest in the way that tweaking the imaginary world can lead to the a disruption of the “natural order”, creating drama out of a simple detail – “like the lions that roam the streets after Caeser is murdered”:
This morning I dreamt that a friend and I lived in a marble palace in Paris. To get there you had to walk under a canopy of buildings that crowded into a cobbled passage. The marble was smooth to the touch and warm, like only white marble can be. The surfaces were soft and shined. We lived there, but it was open day and so we joined the people who walked around, moving from one magnificent room to the next. In one room I stopped and looked out and saw acres of green lawn and fountains, a pale blue sky above.
I think this might be where my ideas come from. Not a white, marble palace in particular, but a world that is entirely created, without my input. I am serious about the acquisition of thoughts and ideas – I make sure that my brain is constantly fed and stimulated – but once the acquisition has taken place I trust the ideas will melt into my subconscious and un-conscience. Once there, I have no control over the amalgamation process.
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by Amanda on Jan 3rd, 2012
In Francois Loots se derde roman, Die jakkalsdans, het elke karakter sy of haar eie hoofstuk, waarin hulle hul eie storie vanuit hul eie perspektief vertel. Loots het in ‘n onderhoud op RSG aan Christelle Webb-Joubert gesê dat die karakters se stemme en die storie van Die jakkalsdans op hierdie manier “na hom gekom” het. “Vir my, as ek skryf, dan doen ek wat van nature kom, wat natuurlik gebeur,” sê hy. Luister na die potgooi:
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by Amanda on Jan 3rd, 2012
Justin Fox spoke to Bruce Dennill about his book, The Marginal Safari: Scouting The Edge of South Africa, which details his very long trip exploring the fringes of South Africa. Fox says he took the journey at a bad time in his life, when his father was diagnosed with cancer, and thus the tone of the book changed as his journey became not just a trip around the Fatherland, but his “Father’s land”, visiting places he had been with his father. Fox says that his travelling lifestyle has made it difficult to form lasting relationships with people, as most connections are “transient”, though “intense” while they last:
In his latest book, The Marginal Safari: Scouting The Edge Of South Africa, travel write Justin Fox literally takes his readers on a guilt trip.
His father, the architect Revel Fox, had been diagnosed with cancer, but lengthy preparations and scheduling problems meant the trip had to be done then or never.
“Those months became free for me to do a long trip, but at a bad time, with my dad coming towards the end of his life,” Fox admits.
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