Archive for the ‘News’ Category
by Amanda on Oct 19th, 2011
Random House Struik is delighted to announce that its Umuzi imprint has acquired the next two novels by star novelist Lauren Beukes.
Umuzi’s bid won a closely contested auction for southern African rights conducted by Beukes’s agent Oliver Munson of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency in London last week.
The rising trajectory of Cape Town-based author Lauren Beukes started with her first futuristic novel Moxyland (2008) and continued with Zoo City (2010), for which she received the internationally prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award.
The first of the two novels that Umuzi will publish is entitled THE SHINING GIRLS. It is a high-concept story of a time-travelling serial killer pursued across time by a surviving victim working together with an ex-homicide reporter. Umuzi will publish the book in a simultaneous, world-wide release in May 2013. The second novel, titled BROKEN MONSTERS, is due for release in 2014.
Rights in the USA and Canada were sold to Little, Brown. A five-house auction for UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding southern Africa, is being concluded. German, Dutch, Italian and Hebrew rights have also been sold so far.
Lauren Beukes says: “Random House Struik’s Umuzi imprint is publishing some of the most striking young voices in South Africa right now, including Diane Awerbuck, Kathryn White and Henrietta Rose-Innes. I’m delighted to be joining a progressive, adventurous and experienced local publisher with global nous.”
Stephen Johnson, Random House Struik MD, says: “Lauren Beukes at home within Random House Struik has been a dream here since her extraordinarily innovative Moxyland created its tidal wave of enthusiastic reader response in the South African market. Zoo City surpassed even that in the acclaim and popularity it enjoyed. The distinct honour of the Arthur C. Clarke Award may have surprised some but it was richly deserved so we look forward hugely to the privilege of publishing Lauren as well as what we possibly can for many years to come. Hers is a unique talent.”
Frederik de Jager, Umuzi publisher, says: “Lauren’s coming to us is one of the most exciting developments ever for Umuzi. I am absolutely convinced that she and we are a perfect fit, and that THE SHINING GIRLS will shoot the lights out.”
Oliver Munson of Blake Friedmann says: “It’s important that Lauren has a publisher whose ambition and creativity matches her own in every market, but no more so than in her home market. I’m sure Lauren and Umuzi will make a terrific team for THE SHINING GIRLS and many books to come.”
Photo: Casey Crafford
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by Amanda on Dec 9th, 2010
Writing for n+1 during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Imraan Coovadia shares his thoughts on South Africa, land of the vuvuzela – and the cliché. It’s a Coovadia classic! Take a break and cast your thoughts back to June:
The vuvuzela is the symbol of the 2010 World Cup. It’s a one metre plastic trumpet, something like the Brazilian corneta, really loud and raucous. At its best a vuvuzela sounds like a fog horn.
Everyone has a vuvuzela. In their tens of thousands, in the beautiful new soccer stadiums, they have the sonic effect of massed rocket launchers, deafening foreign players and commentators. The locals are already deaf. You also hear vuvuzelas blown on the streets everywhere in Cape Town, and in houses, in hotel rooms, on the upper floor balconies of the bars on Long Street as the procession of fans goes by every evening. On the unfinished section of highway bridge near the water, Hyundai, the car company, has rigged up a 114 foot long vuvuzela. When a goal is scored the giant horn will be electronically triggered.
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by Amanda on Nov 11th, 2010
Umuzi and Boekehuis invite you to the launch of David Goldblatt and Ivan Vladislavic’s unique collaborative work, TJ & Double Negative.
About TJ:
In David Goldblatt’s TJ he writes that ‘Johannesburg is a fragmented city. It is not a place of smoothly integrated parts. And it has a name that does not roll easily off the tongue.’ TJ, a book of photographs of Johannesburg: the City of Gold, Chowburg, eGoli, Jozi, Goutini, Duiwelsdorp.
Commencing in the 1950s, Goldblatt’s masterful lens probes, documents, and comments on life over six decades in this incomparable African city.
Selected from a massive body of work, this superb distillation presents a unique pictorial history of the city.
About Double Negative:
Accompanying TJ in a sleeved set beautifully produced in Italy, is Double Negative, a new novel by Ivan Vladislavić. In Double Negative, a young man in Johannesburg receives from a senior photographer an induction into the intricate nature of photography and artistic representation. ‘If,’ he says, ‘I try to imagine the lives going on in all these houses, the domestic dramas, the family sagas, it seems impossibly complicated. How could you ever do justice to something so rich in detail? You couldn’t do it in a novel, let alone a photograph.’
The novel traces the young man as he heads into his career that takes him overseas and back, developing in the process an ever widening perspective on not only the social and political change in the country but also on questions to do with observation and the observing subject. It brings into sharp focus the history of South Africa’s recent past and the difficulty of imaging and re-imagining it.
Please join us at Boekehuis Bookshop on the 16th for a discussion between David Goldblatt and Ivan Vladislavic, moderated by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, the newly appointed editor of Art SA.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Event Details
- Date: Tuesday, 16 November 2010
- Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
- Venue: Boekehuis Bookshop
Corner Lothbury Road and Fawley Avenue
Auckland Park
Johannesburg | Map
- RSVP: Boekehuis@boekehuis.co.za, 011 482 3609
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by Amanda on Nov 3rd, 2010
Jenny Crwys-Williams and Co will host acclaimed writer Peter Harris at Randlords on 10 November. Jenny and Peter will be in discussion on the latter’s highly-anticipated new book, Birth: The Conspiracy to Stop the ’94 Election.
The country was ablaze. There were bomb blasts, massacres, assassinations. The right wing wanted a Volkstaat; Inkatha wanted secession for KwaZulu and was prepared to fight for it. It was a time fraught with danger. It was a time loaded with possibility. Peter Harris saw it all from the inside. In January 1994 he was seconded to the newly formed Independent Electoral Commission with South Africa’s first democratic election only three months away. A dedicated group of people tasked with the impossible. This story – enthralling, moving, thrilling – reveals the forces at work behind the scenes: those intent on destruction, those committed to delivering an election against the odds, and a conspiracy to strike at the heart of the election. Birth is about a vulnerable moment. It is about a nation staring into the abyss as it steps out to determine its future.
On the 22nd floor overlooking Joburg’s glimmering skyline, Randlords is one of Joburg’s most sought after venues and the perfect setting for the launch of this gripping book.
Be sure not to miss out on this spectacular event and join Jenny & Co on the 10th of this month!
Event Details
- Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010
- Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
- Venue: Randlords
South Point Building
41 De Korte Street
Braamfontein
Johannesburg | Map
- Cost: VIP Members- R300/person, Members-R325/person (including parking fee)
- To book: jennyandco@iburst.co.za, 011 477 4404, 011 242 8637, 076 393 8083
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by Amanda on Sep 29th, 2010
It has been an open secret for some time that a new book by Peter Harris is on its way. It can now be confirmed that Birth: The Conspiracy to Stop the ’94 Election will be published by Umuzi in November.
The keen anticipation for this release follows on the remarkable success of Harris’s first book, In a Different Time. Published to huge acclaim in 2007, it rapidly achieved bestseller status and still is a constant seller. That a book about a political trial back in the 1980s should be described as reading “like a John Grisham novel”, and be called “the most wonderfully good book about South Africa I have read in a decade” − amongst its many accolades – says everything about how this author can write. That it won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, amongst others, says much about the regard in which book and author are held. In a Different Time will also shortly be available in the UK, Spain, and Sweden.
Small wonder then the expectation for Birth. Amongst the wonders of this book is the fact that one man should have been part of two such astonishing political stories in his lifetime. Peter Harris, the advocate of the Delmas Four whose story he tells in his first book, was later appointed head of the monitoring division of the Independent Electoral Commission that ran South Africa’s first democratic election in April 1994. That placed him squarely at the centre of everything that went on – and threatened, at every turn, to go disastrously wrong.
Recollected in calmer times, his blow-by-blow account of what happened behind the scenes when an entire nation was at a historical crossroads with everything at stake, is a much bigger story, but one that promises to be as riveting a read as its predecessor.
Sit tight until November – Birth will be here sooner than you know it!
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Photo courtesy Victor Dlamini
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by Amanda on Aug 23rd, 2010
Not a Fairytale is a wonderful, unusual book set in an Indian Muslim community. This debut by Shaida Kazie Ali tells the story of two Cape Town sisters, interspersed with fairytales with a modern spin and even a recipe or two…
Salena, the older sister, is light-skinned and demure, an easy one to marry off to a husband of her parents’ choosing. Zuhra is dark and wilful, refusing tradition and leaving the country in pursuit of her own destiny.
The shoots of their lives grow apart and interlace again. Salena finds herself in a repressive marriage much like her mother’s. Zuhra comes to suspect grim undercurrents to both their lives, which she expresses by retelling familiar fairytales, often hilariously, in a Muslim framework.
But this is not a fairytale. The dark forest is real, and so are its secrets
from Not a Fairy Tale
Faruk-Paruk calls me worsie lippe. I hate him. I wish he would die. He doesn’t know, but I saw him bury his comics outside in the back yard. First, he put them in black rubbish bags and then he dug a hole to bury the bags because he doesn’t want me to read them. Why would I? I hate silly Superman. I mean, he’s got blue hair. How stupid is that? But I hate Faruk-Paruk more. When is he going to grow up? He’s old now. Seventeen. If you say his name fast enough, with lots of rrrrrrs, it sounds like a frog croaking. Farrrrukparrruk. I think he is a frog, or a toad. Something slimy and cold.
I wish Salena wasn’t getting married today, because my rose-pink dress is turning red as my nose drips drops of blood onto the lap of my skirt. I’m too scared to move. I don’t want Ma to see that I’ve messed on my skirt. I don’t want a hiding on Salena’s wedding day.
About the author
Shaida Kazie Ali has worked as an English tutor for distance learning students and has lectured in Tourism Studies. She is currently working at the alternative admissions department of the University of Cape Town. Married with two children, she lives in Cape Town. Her work has appeared in Women Flashing and Writing the Self. Not a Fairy Tale is her first novel.
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by Amanda on Aug 12th, 2010
Umuzi, a bright success story on the South African book publishing scene, was five years old in July and will publish its 100th title in August. The imprint was created in 2005 to celebrate the 40th year of Random House in South Africa, and it was established as the South African imprint of Random House that was, until then, mainly involved with publishing its U.K.-based imprints in the local market.
Under the leadership of its founder publisher, Dr Annari van der Merwe, and publishing according to a mantra of “the South African here and now”, Umuzi rapidly became the house of choice for some of the foremost writers of this country, counting in its ranks authors like Ivan Vladislavić, Antjie Krog, Njabulo Ndebele, Mike Nicol, Lewis Nkosi, Imraan Coovadia, Chris Barnard, EKM Dido, the photographer David Goldblatt, and many more. More recent acquisitions include books by Carel van der Merwe, Wessel Ebersohn, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Justin Fox, Leon de Kock and Jassy Mackenzie.
The 100th title to come out under the Umuzi imprint is the novel Son-in-Law of the Boere by Nape ‘a Motana, a delightful satire in which a young black man comes up against old realities and new possibilities when he falls in love with an Afrikaans girl. The book is released in September 2010.
Umuzi titles have not only frequented the bestseller lists, but also the shortlists of the country’s highest honours for books, and also international prizes like the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Africa Region) and the International Thriller Award. The prestigious Sunday Times Alan Paton Award has been won twice (Ivan Vladislavić and Peter Harris), and the University of Johannesburg Prize three times (Ivan Vladislavić and Imraan Coovadia, with Chris Marnewick in the debut category). The South African Literary Award was presented to Patrick Cullinan and Njabulo Ndebele, while Michael Cawood Green is receiving this year’s Olive Schreiner Prize.
Umuzi authors have done well abroad too. Translation rights in their titles have been sold in Sweden, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece, as well as English rights in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the USA.
Umuzi has not only achieved significant critical acclaim. The imprint has been commercially successful too and remained ahead of its business projections, even during the worst semesters of the recent recession. Among its major successes have been Odyssey to Freedom, the autobiography of George Bizos, Dark Continent My Black Arse by Sihle Khumalo, Kruidjie roer my by Antoinette Pienaar, In a Different Time by Peter Harris and, more recently, Evita’s Kossie Sikelela by Pieter-Dirk Uys and Linda Vicquery, also available in Afrikaans.
In September 2008 Random House South Africa merged with Struik Publishers, following which Umuzi became an imprint of Random House Struik (RHS) along with sister imprints Zebra Press, Struik Nature, Struik Lifestyle and Struik Travel and Heritage. Random House MD Stephen Johnson became MD of RHS, and in March 2009 Frederik de Jager became the publisher of Umuzi.
The word “umuzi” in the Nguni languages means “house” and “home”, while the sound of it has overtones of “muse” and “music”, all of which embody the idea of a place where creativity is sheltered and fostered.
MD Stephen Johnson says, “Umuzi’s place in the bright firmament of its elder imprints, particularly on the eve of Struik celebrating its half a century next year, seems assured through an almost magical mix of quality writers whose books are second to none. The manner in which these powerful assets are supported by sales, publicity and a reader excitement in the market that is often inspiring is hugely rewarding. That the committed team who so carefully nurture this particular imprint’s writers and their work found such enthusiastic welcome in the market is thrilling to see as Umuzi’s fifth year dawns and its first ‘centurion’ prepares to join the march of those most worthy harbingers who helped build a truly sound foundation. To all our warmest congratulations and thanks, especially for the ongoing trust that our fledgling imprint continues to enjoy.”
Publisher Frederik de Jager says, “It is a pure delight to be working with books and people of such quality. Quality is the firm platform on which we stand, and while our imprint will continue focusing on its core areas of accessible fiction of quality and narrative non-fiction, we will also be seeking strategic growth in other areas.”
UMUZI VIER 5DE JAAR EN 100STE TITEL
Umuzi, ’n suksesverhaal in die Suid-Afrikaanse uitgewerswese, was in Julie 5 jaar oud en publiseer sy 100ste titel in Augustus. Die druknaam is in 2005 gestig om 40 jaar van van Random House se berdywigheid in Suid-Afrika te vier en om as sy Suid-Afrikaanse druknaam te dien.
Onder die leiding van Umuzi se stigter-uitgewer, dr. Annari van der Merwe, en die mantra “die Suid-Afrikaanse hier en nou”, het Umuzi spoedig vir baie van Suid-Afrika se vooraanstaande skrywers die voorkeurtuiste geword. Onder hulle tel Ivan Vladislavić, Antjie Krog, Njabulo Ndebele, Mike Nicol, Lewis Nkosi, Imraan Coovadia, Chris Barnard, EKM Dido, die fotograaf David Goldblatt, en nog vele meer. Meer onlangse toevoegings tot hierdie geledere is onder meer Carel van der Merwe, Wessel Ebersohn, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Justin Fox, Leon de Kock en Jassy Mackenzie.
Die 100ste titel wat onder die Umuzi-druknaam verskyn, is die roman Son-in-Law of the Boere deur Nape ’a Motana. Hierdie satire handel oor ’n jong swart man wat op ’n Afrikaanse meisie verlief raak en byna sy Moses met beide ou realiteite en nuwe moontlikhede teëkom. Die boek word in September uitgereik.
Die boeke wat Umuzi publiseer is nie net gereeld topverkopers nie, maar verskyn ook op die kortlyste vir die land se hoogste toekennings aan boeke , asook op die kortlyste vir internasionale pryse soos die Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Afrika-streek) en die International Thriller Award. Die toonaangewende Sunday Times Alan Paton-toekenning is twee keer toegeken (Ivan Vladislavić en Peter Harris) en die Universiteit van Johannesburg-prys drie keer (Ivan Vladislavić en Imraan Coovadia, met Chris Marnewick in die debuutkatagorie). Patrick Cullinan en Njabulo Ndebele het die Suid-Afrikaanse Literêre Toekenning ontvang, en die Olive Schreiner-prys word vanjaar aan Michael Cawood Green toegeken.
Umuzi se skrywers vaar ook goed in die buiteland, waar vertaalregte in Swede, Italië, Spanje, Nederland, Duitsland en Griekeland verkoop is. Engelse regte is daarby in Nigerië, Brittanje en die VSA verkoop.
Umuzi-boeke kry nie net hoë lof nie, maar hulle verkoop ook goed. Die druknaam het tydens die donkerste semesters van die onlangse resessie steeds sy projeksies oortref. Onder sy grootste suksesse tel die outobiografie van George Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, Sihle Khumalo se Dark Continent My Black Arse, Kruidjie roer my deur Antoinette Pienaar, In a Different Time deur Peter Harris en onlangs Evita se Kossie Sikelela deur Pieter-Dirk Uys en Linda Vicquery, ook beskikbaar in Engels.
In September 2008 het Random House Suid-Afrika en Struik-Uitgewers saamgesmelt. In die proses het Umuzi ’n suster-onderneming van die drukname Zebra Press, Struik Nature, Struik Lifestyle en Struik Travel and Heritage binne Random House Struik (RHS) geword. Stephen Johnson, die besturende direkteur van Random House, het besturende direkteur van RHS geword en in Maart 2009 word Frederik de Jager uitgewer van Umuzi.
Die woord “umuzi” beteken “huis” en “tuiste” in die Nguni-tale, terwyl daar op die klank af ook bowetone van “muse” en “musiek” is – tekenend van ’n plek waar kreatiwiteit gehuisves en gekoester word.
Stephen Johnson, Uitvoerende Direkteur, sê: “Umuzi se plek in ’n helder konstellasie van sustersdrukname, veral op die vooraand van Struik se viering van ’n halfeeu volgende jaar, blyk gevestig te wees danksy ’n amper magiese mengsel van kwaliteit skrywers wie se boeke werklik van besonderse gehalte is. Die wyse waarop dié bate deur verkope, reklame en opgewonde lesers ondersteun word, is opwindend en ’n bron van inspirasie. Dit is ook heerlik om te sien hoe entoesiasties die toegewyde span, wat met groot sorg vir die groei van Umuzi se skrywers en hul werk verantwoordelik is, in die mark verwelkom word. Die aanbreek van Umuzi se vyfde verjaarsdag val saam met die uitgawe van hul honderdste boek, wat spreek van die soliede grondslag wat oor die afgelope jare gelê is. Ons wens almal betrokke hartlik geluk en wil ook graag dankie sê vir die toenemende vertroue wat ons jongste druknaam deurlopend geniet.”
Uitgewer Frederik de Jager sê: “Dit is hoogs bevredigend om met boeke en mense van hierdie gehalte te werk. Gehalte is die vaste basis waarop ons staan, en terwyl ons druknaam sal bly fokus op toeganklike fiksie en verhalende nie-fiksie, sal ons ook groeigeleenthede op nuwe terreine soek.”
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by Amanda on Jul 28th, 2010
Umuzi is proud to announce that Chris Marnewick’s Shepherds and Butchers has been awarded the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award, which forms part of the South African Literary Awards. A formal prize-giving ceremony will be held at a function in December 2010.
Founded by the wRite Associates in partnership with the National Ministry of Arts & Culture, the South African Literary Awards endeavour to pay overdue homage and honour to literary practitioners and legends while encouraging the advancement of South Africa’s literary heritage and practice.
Published in 2008, the novel’s other accolades include being shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (African Region), and the M-Net Literary Awards, as well as winning the University of Johannesburg Prize for the best creative debut work in English.
Shepherds and Butchers is a cliff-hanger courtroom drama that, in a potent blend of fiction and non-fiction, explores the psychology and physical details of capital punishment by hanging as incisively as seldom before.
Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and writer of the screenplay for the blockbuster movie, says: “The riveting way in which Chris Marnewick has fused fact and fiction and explored the fine line between human frailty and human cruelty, makes Shepherds and Butchers unforgettable.”
More praise for Shepherds and Butchers:
“Unputdownable” – Etienne van Heerden, LitNet
“Possibly the most gripping, most gruelling novel I’ve read” – Vivien Horler, Cape Argus
“Surely one of the most important South African novels of the year” – Andrew Trench, Saturday Dispatch
“Astonishing tour de force” – James Mitchell
“Superb, intensely disturbing novel ought to be mandatory reading” – Gwen Podbrey, SA Jewish Report
Chris Marnewick obtained his B Juris degree from Potchefstroom University in 1970. An LLB from Unisa followed in 1973 and an LLM from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1990, which also awarded him his PhD in 1996. As a jurist he was, successively, Clerk of the Court, Prosecutor, Magistrate, Attorney and Advocate. He was admitted to practice in New Zealand and New South Wales and spent five years teaching litigation skills to law graduates in New Zealand. He is an SC at the Durban Bar and lives in Durban. He is the author of Litigation Skills for South African Lawyers (2002) and his most recent work of fiction, The Soldier Who Said No, was published by Umuzi in May 2010.
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by Amanda on Jul 26th, 2010
Umuzi is proud to announce that Imraan Coovadia’s High Low In-between was honoured with this year’s R75 000 Fiction Prize during a stylish event at Summer Place in Johannesburg on Saturday, July 24.
“The novel impressed the panel in its elegance and commitment to the exploration of middle-class Durban Indian communities and their struggles for identity and place, in an all too quickly shifting democratic era,” says Sunday Times books editor, Tymon Smith.
“The Fiction Prize winner should be a work of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark in contemporary fiction. High Low In-between does just that,” he adds.
This award comes hard on the heels of Coovadia’s winning the University of Johannesburg Literary Award for the same novel. It is also shortlisted for the M-Net Prize which will be announced on 31 July. His first two novels were both shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.
Set in KwaZulu-Natal, High Low in-between charts the relationship between Nafisa, who is coming to terms with her husband’s murder, and the people around her: her dysfunctional family as well as her patient, Millicent Dhlomo, who is dying of Aids. With gathering momentum, the novel exposes the reader to Nafisa’s world of organ donation, greedy Aids denialists, quack doctors, bribes and the looming threats by the South African Revenue Service.
Umuzi – and all at Random House Struik – extend warmest congratulations to Coovadia.
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by Amanda on May 20th, 2010
It gives Random House Struik great pleasure to announce that JM Coetzee is the recipient of Australia’s 2010 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for his autobiographical novel, Summertime. The announcement of this prestigious award was made on Monday, 17 May by New South Wales Premier, Kristina Keneally. The prize comes with a AUS40 000 purse.
The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction is named in honour of the highly acclaimed Australian novelist and short-story writer. The prize may be awarded for either a novel or a collection of stories.
In Summertime, a rich, funny, and deeply affecting autobiographical novel, a young English biographer is working on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. He plans to focus on the years from 1972–1977 when Coetzee, in his thirties, is sharing a run-down cottage in the suburbs of Cape Town with his widowed father. This, the biographer senses, is the period when he was “finding his feet as a writer”.
Never having met Coetzee, he embarks on a series of interviews with people who were important to him – a married woman with whom he had an affair, his favourite cousin Margot, a Brazilian dancer whose daughter had English lessons with him, former friends and colleagues. From their testimony emerges a portrait of the young Coetzee as an awkward, bookish individual with little talent for opening himself to others.
Sometimes heartbreaking, often very funny, Summertime shows us a great writer as he limbers up for his task. It completes the majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir begun with Boyhood and Youth.
JM Coetzee’s works include Waiting For the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, and Diary of a Bad Year. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.
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