In A Case of Knives, a new novel by Julian de Wette, it is the 1960s in South Africa and the new prime minister has his head full of plans. He consults a powerful witchdoctor, but once he begins his scheme for cutting up the land he loses the sangoma’s protection.
In the meantime the family butler has himself reclassified so he can marry the Coloured nanny. But his plans go awry and his desperate struggle with bureaucracy sets off a bizarre chain of events that end in a shocking murder.
Witnessed by the precocious grandson of the gardener at the family estate, colourful characters act out a drama on the stage of history, oblivious to the horror with which posterity may view them.
About the Author
Julian de Wette was born in Cape Town and attended South Peninsula High School in Diep River. He is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in New York and worked for the United Nations for over 20 years in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Kazakhstan and the USA. He is the author of three volumes of Afrikaans poetry and now lives with his wife in the Overberg.
Umuzi is delighted to announce the publication of Alex Smith new novel, Four Drunk Beauties, which will appear in May
Left to rot in an Iranian prison and under the shadow of death, Kamaal tells fellow-insurgent Drew the story of the four drunk beauties – Elvira the housekeeper and ex-assassin, Lou the Senegalese sculptor, virtuoso cellist Mimi, and Adriette, a food fundi from the Free State.
The two men follow the beauties’ wild chase through Iran in pursuit of a killer, a quest undertaken to prevent a catastrophe. And all the while the ancient and modern flavours of a country – its poetry, architecture and music – come to life in the rich and sensual tapestry of Alex Smith’s story-telling.
About the author
Born in Cape Town, Alex Smith has lived in China, Taiwan and the UK, and when still working as a designer and textile merchant travelled extensively to other parts of the world, but she is thrilled to be back in Africa, writing, and living across the road from the sea. Secretly she thinks she’s a fish, a walking fish, a mudskipper (as she confesses in this blog post: On Fish and Men With Film In Their Socks), and there’s no secret she’s a dedicated booknik.
To satisfy her dual habits of book and sea fetishism she walks along the sea ten kilometres a day to work in one of the finest bookshops on the African continent – a bookshop with a spectacular view of the harbour, the boats and Table Mountain beyond. Alex’s first novel, Algeria’s Way, set in Spain, was published in 2007 and her first non-fiction novel, Drinking from the Dragon’s Well, sent in China, was published in 2008 and was included in the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award longlist for that year.
Being a booknik, naturally Alex is passionate about the accessibility of books in mother languages, in 2008/2009 she volunteered to promote the Little Hands Trust’s blog at BOOK SA and conducted a series of interviews with African authors on their childhood memories of books and reading. Two of her favourite formative reading experiences interviews were with Ugandan poet Susan Kiguli and South African author/journalist Darrel Bristow-Bovey.
Writing jointly in the Sunday Times, educationists and authors Njabulo Ndebele and Graeme Bloch urge South Africans to support Equal Education‘s “One School, One Library, One Librarian” Campaign. Ndebele is author, most recently, of Fine Lines from the Box (Umuzi, 2007); Bloch’s latest book is The Toxic Mix (Tafelberg, 2009):
On Human Rights Day, March 21, a Sunday, 10000 high school pupils marched through the centre of Cape Town in school uniform. They were children, predominantly of working-class origins, from all over the Western Cape, rural and urban, black and white. Not a rock or a bottle was thrown and they dispersed peacefully to the trains that had been arranged to take them home.
The children were marching for books. In 2010, when we have built fine football stadiums across the country and will undoubtedly run an organised and inspiring World Cup, children were marching under the same banner as in 1976: Equal Education.
Sixteen years after democracy, our young people are calling for schools that work, for places where they may study and for materials that will help them read and learn. As the organisation Equal Education points out, fewer than 7% of schools in South Africa have a functioning library. Perhaps 21% have some kind of structure called a reading room, but these are usually used for classrooms, are seldom stocked properly and do not have a library professional in charge to ensure that the right books are there and that they are used properly. The lack of libraries compounds the many problems, such as teachers’ poor subject knowledge and poor access to textbooks, that plague our schooling system. These factors combine to make our reading outcomes, at all grade levels, among the worst in Africa.
Frederik de Jager of Random House Struik’s Umuzi imprint has won an auction between several South African companies to publish Henrietta Rose-Innes’ short story collection Homing and a forthcoming novel in South Africa.
The short story “Poison” won Henrietta Rose-Innes the HSBC / PEN Short Story Prize 2007 and the Caine Prize in 2008. The Guardian described it as “a compellingly enigmatic story” and J M Coetzee has spoken of Henrietta’s “admirably taut clean prose”. Her short story “Falling” is shortlisted for the Willesden Short Story Prize, on a list that includes writers like Wena Poon and Toby Litt. The Willesden Short Story Prize will be announced in London on 10 April.
Henrietta’s work has appeared in various international publications and her writing has been translated into German, Romanian and Arabic. She is the author of two previous novels, The Rock Alphabet and Shark’s Egg (both published in South Africa by Kwela). Dream Homes: Schnappschüsse und Geschichten aus Kapstadt, a collection of short pieces, appeared in German translation in 2008. She has a piece in Zebra’s new Home Away anthology. She was a Fellow in Literature at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 2007-8, and has also held residencies at the Chateau de Lavigny, Lausanne (2004), the kunst:raum sylt quelle, Sylt (2006) and the University of Georgetown (2009). Since 2006, Henrietta Rose-Innes has also been a writer in residence in the University of Cape Town’s Creative Writing Centre.
Umuzi’s publisher Frederik de Jager says, “It is a rare pleasure to sign up and welcome an author of Henrietta’s calibre. We believe that this publishing house, where she is joining some of the finest South African writers of our day, will amplify her voice so that the beauty and wisdom of her prose can reach an ever wider audience.”
Umuzi will publish Homing in South Africa in July 2010, with the novel to follow in 2011.
Henrietta is one of the writers invited to take part in the South African Market Focus One Nation, Many Voices Programme at the London Book Fair, 19-21 April, and will also take part in the Worlds Literary Festival in Norwich, 21- 25 June, along with writers like J M Coetzee, M J Hyland, Adam Thorpe, Zoë Wicomb, Michelle de Kretser, Gabeba Baderoon and Neil Mukherjee.
The two-book deal was brokered by Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, who represents Henrietta’s work worldwide.
The work is one of 10 pre-selected novels chosen by Books at Berlinale, the co-production arm of the festival, taking place this February. Each novel will be pitched to international arthouse producers by the representatives holding the film rights.
We Are All Zimbabweans Now occupies an important place amongst the fictional chronicles of post-independence Zimbabwe. It is an accomplished and compelling novel and deftly analyzes the complex struggles for power in post-independence Africa.
The Berlin International Film Festival is one of the world’s top international film events, where approximately 20,000 filmmakers, industry professionals and film buffs from over 100 countries, come together for 11 days in February. With more than 270,000 tickets sold to the public, the ‘Berlinale’ is the largest audience festival in the world.
“Books at Berlinale” was introduced in 2006 in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair with the goal of bringing the book and film worlds closer together. The programme also includes an information session for publishers and literary agents into the “film producing and financing world” as well as a case study on a literary adaptation screening.
About the Author
James Kilgore first made news in South Africa when he was arrested in Cape Town in 2002. He had been living under the alias Dr. John Pape and had become a respected academic at the University of Cape Town. US authorities extradited him to California where he served six and a half years in prison for his involvement in political activities in the volatile San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s. He was released on the 10th of May 2009.
Lin Sampson, a journalist who is notoriously stingy with praise, finds cause aplenty to recommend JM Coetzee’s Summertime as a stocking-stuffer this Xmas season:
His writing just gets better and better and there is something compelling about his detachment from himself (the story is about a dead writer and the interviews conducted for a biography). The style is understated but audacious.
Chris Barnard, reus van die Afrikaanse letterkunde, vier vandag sy sewentigste verjaarsdag. Sy skrywersloopbaan span oor 47 jaar, van die sy eerste roman toe hy 21 jaar oud was en waarvoor hy die CNA-prys ontvang het, tot met sy jongste, univereel geprese bundel kort vertellings in 2008.
Barnard het 29 boeke gepubliseer, in al die prosa-genres: romans en novelles, kortverhale, jegromans en dramas vir die verhoog, die radio, televisie en vir film. Onlangs het hy begin om lirieke te skryf wat opgeneem is deur van die voorste Afrikaanse sangers. Sy romans, kortverhale, jeugverhale, dramas en draaiboeke is vir geslagte skoolleerders en universiteitstudente voorgeskryf, en word steeds voorgeskryf.
Sy werke het klassieke status in die Afrikaanse kanon: romans soos Mahala (1971) en Moerland (1992), kortverhaalbundels soos Duiwel-in-die-bos (1968), jeugromans soos Danda (1971) en Voetpad na Vergelegen (1987) en dramas soos Pa maak vir my ’n vlieër Pa (1964), Die rebellie van Lafras Verwey (1971) en Taraboemdery (1977). Laasegnoemde, wat die eerste keer onder die regie van André Brink, opgevoer is, was onlangs weer op die verhoog, en sy jongste drama, Die twaalfuurwals (2008), was ’n lokettreffer. Barards is ook die skrywer van die draaiboek vir Paljas, die eerste Suid-Afrikaanse film wat vir ’n Oscar genomineer is (onde regie van sy vrou, Katinka Heyns, en vervaardig deur Anant Singh).
Chris Barnard het ’n indrukwekkende versameling bekronings ontvang, agtien altesaam, vir werke van al die genres waaring hy skryf. Dit sluit in feitlik al die hoogaangeskrewe pryse wat aan ’n Afrikaanse skrywer toegeken kan word, onder meer die CNA-prys dire keer en die Hertzog-prys twee keer. Hy is sonder twyfel een van die mees bekroonde skrywers in Afrikaans.
Hy was nooit ’n openlik politieke skrywer nie, maar trou aan die vakmanskap van die vertelkuns, het hy eenkeer gesê: as jy die waarheid skryf, kan jy nie die politiek misskryf nie. Wanneer hy dus skryf oor gewone mense in hul verskillende toestande van broos geluk, stemloosheid of verlange, sien hy verwonding – of dit nou persoonlik of politiek is – as universeel aan die menslike kondisie.
Hy is bekend onder sy portuurs, redakteurs en lesers as ’n uitnemende vakman en het het hom onderskei met skryfwerk van besondere ekonomie en oënskynlike eenvoud wat die fyn leser daarvan ryklik beloon. Saam met figure soos André P. Brink, Breyten Breytenbach en Dolf van Niekerk tel hy onder die oorblywende Sestigers, ’n losse versmaeling skrywers wat in die jare sestig op die toneel gekom en die grense van verlammende gemoedelikheid en versmorende engtes van die letterkunde van hul tyd dramaties versit het.
Chris Barnard is op 15 Julie 1939 gebore op ’n plaas buite Nelspruit. Sy eerste roman is gepubliseer toe hy ’n Tukkie-student was. Hy het as joernalis gaan werk, uitgewyk na Parys, destydse wêreldmekka van vernuwende kunstenaars en skrywers, en teruggekeer om boekeredakteur te word. Hy is later terug na die joernalistiek, maar sy huwelik met die filmmaker Katinka Heyns het hom as skrywer en vervaardiger diep betrokke gemaak by die televisie- en filmbedryf. ’n Dekade gelede het hy teruggekeer na die Laeveld waar hy, soos sy vader, in die Nelspruit-distrik boer.
BOEKE VAN CHRIS BARNARD
Romans
Man in die middel (1963)
Mahala (1971)
Moerland (1992)
Boendoe (1999) (more…)
David Lurie, twee maal geskeide Engels-professor van Kaapstad, verlei ’n student. Die gevolg is dat hy sy werk en reputasie kwyt is en uitwyk na sy dogter se plaas in die Oos-Kaap, waar hy stadigaan deur die natuurlike ritme van die plaas tot ’n mate van lewensharmonie terugkeer.
Daar is egter ’n plaasaanval waarin sy dogter verkrag en hy wreed aangerand word, wat hom hard konfronteer met die feit dat daar in hierdie land vir hom, ’n ouer wordende wit man, dalk tog nie plek is nie.
In oneer – Disgrace in Engels – is die eerste keer dat Coetzee in Afrikaans vertaal word. Die bekende digter Fanie Olivier het dit vertaal.
Oor die outeur
JM Coetzee is in Kaapstad gebore en het in Worcester en Kaapstad grootgeword. Hy het Wiskunde en Engels aan die Universiteit van Kaapstad gestudeer voordat hy na Londen toe is waar hy as progammeerder vir IBM gewerk het. Hy het aan die Universiteit van Texas ’n doktorsgraad oor die werk van Samuel Beckett behaal en het in die VSA gedoseer voordat hy in 1971 professor in Engelse letterkunde aan die Universiteit van Kaapstad geword het. Na sy aftrede in 2002 is hy na Adeleide in Australië waar hy steeds woon, ’n Australiese burger sedert 2006. (more…)
Two Umuzi authors whose legal careers inspired haunting page-turners have clinched deals that will hopefully see their books travel to the big screen.
Durban advocate Chris Marnewick fused fact and fiction in Shepherds & Butchers, a riveting cliff-hanger courtroom drama about capital punishment – and has now also sold movie rights for an undisclosed sum to Anant Singh of Video Vision Entertainment.
The deal was clinched shortly after the news that Shepherds & Butchers had been awarded the debut prize in this year’s University of Johannesburg Creative Writing Awards.
Movie rights for In a Different Time: The inside story of the Delmas Four were also sold this week, to Two Oceans Production. Johannesburg author Peter Harris practised law for fifteen years and was the lawyer who fought for the lives of the four MK soldiers that would, in the course of the last big political trial of the apartheid era, become known as the Delmas four.
In a Different Time tells the story of that dark chapter in South African history. It is shortlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and has been a consistent bestseller for Umuzi (a Random House Struik imprint).
“Both these books are not only great reads but are naturally filmic and should make wonderful movies,” Umuzi publisher Frederik de Jager said yesterday. (more…)
Fourteen years after Wessel Ebersohn’s last novel comes The October Killings, in which thriller and police procedural, action and social commentary are deftly combined.
Abigail Bukulu, a young star in the Justice Department, receives a visit from Leon Lourens. Many years ago when she was only 15 he saved her life when he was one of a group of South African soldiers sent to attack an ANC safe house in Lesotho. Having paid the price for his rebellion, Leon now needs Abigail’s protection.
On 22 October each year, the date of the Lesotho attack, another member of the SADF squad is killed. Now, that date is approaching, and only two of them remain: the squad commander, who’s serving his sentence in C-Max, and Leon. Abigail immediately knows who is behind the October Killings: a sinister and dangerous man named Bishop who had joined the Struggle for dubious reasons.
In a rush against time, over a course with many obstacles, Abigail finds a partner in the eccentric prison psychologist Yudel Gordon, a “veteran” from three earlier Ebersohn novels. And so a fiery partnership is established that is likely to electrify several future books.
The October Killings is intelligent entertainment that also draws an honest picture of the ills of South Africa today.
“I gulped down this book in one sitting.” — Michele Magwood
From The October Killings, page 59
Yudel Gordon circled his wife’s kitchen stove. After a considerable struggle he had managed to drag it far enough from the wall to go right round it. He was looking for the fuses.
Rosa, his wife, was sitting at the kitchen table, observing this singular scene. Yudel rarely attempted to repair anything and, on those few occasions, he was even more rarely successful. “We could get a repair man,” she suggested. “I know they’re expensive, but at least they have experience.”
Yudel did not answer. This was a matter of pride. He had asked about stoves at the local hardware store and was trying to remember what the assistant had said. He recalled being advised that the fuses were probably behind a little lid or a flap.
Wessel Ebersohn lives in Johannesburg. Most of his eight books have been international successes. They include A Lonely Place to Die, Divide the Night, Store up the Anger and Closed Circle. He stopped writing fiction to create, with his wife Miriam, Succeed, a magazine for entrepreneurs. Fourteen years later, The October Killings is his first new novel, with more to follow.
This May, fresh fiction from Umuzi
‘n Augustus titel van Umuzi
From legal eagles to movie muses.
