TO ACT I S TO DO. TO ACT I S TO ADOPT A ROLE. This slippage between agency and being, on the one hand, and performance, on the other, is amplified in Ek’t Act’s homophonic play across languages. Expanding on Klara du Plessis’s earlier translingual poetry, critically acclaimed in Canada, this collection flows seamlessly between English and Afrikaans. In dié bundel verskyn ’n spreker en ’n kind. Hulle is verweef in taal, landskap, liggaam en digkuns. Ek’t Act se reeks lang gedigte wil voorgedra word, om in ritme en klank, ‘van liggaam tot lig,’ te resoneer.
PRAISE FOR EK’T ACT
‘Ek’t Act is eietyds, meesleurend, onweerstaanbaar eroties en beeldskoon. Die gedigte is opwindend vars en geanker in ons oomblik, maar die emosionele strominge waarmee die werk beweeg is veel ouer. Du Plessis verken met kenmerkende presisie en konseptuele sofistikasie maar ook in ’n diep persoonlike register hoe kuns te staan kom teen die liggaam, hoe die liggaam te staan kom teen kuns, en wat dit beteken om te skep vanuit ’n vroulike lyf.’ A Z I L L E COETZEE
‘A delicate, lyrical collection, Ek’t Act sings of the grand yearnings and desires of the body. With imagery that is at times candid, at times veiled, but always adventurous, the poet reveals herself as someone who maps out a world with an open, multilingual gaze.’ ALFRED SCHAFFER
‘In Ek’t Act plaas Klara du Plessis haar transtalige poëtika sentraal, ’n werks-wyse wat sy sedert haar debuut Ekke (2018) op intrigerende wyse oopskryf. Deur Afrikaanse en Engelse teksfragmente te vervleg, as deel van langer gedigsiklusse, ontstaan gedigte wat mekaar weerspieël én verruim, met veelvlakkige betekenislading. Temas soos taal, liggaamlikheid, begeerte en moederskap staan voorop. Met Ek’t Act vestig sy haarself as ’n grensverskuiwende nuwe stem in die Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde.’ ALWYN ROUX
ISBN: 978-1-0370-9370-8
Publication date: September 2025
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KLARA DU PLESSIS is known for her contributions to long-form and translingual poetics. In Canada, she has published five books of poetry and literary essays. Her debut collection, Ekke (Palimpsest Press, 2018), won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and her critical writing received Arc Poetry Magazine’s Critic’s Desk Award. The book-length narrative poem, Hell Light Flesh (Palimpsest Press, 2020), was adapted and produced as a mono-opera film, composed by Jimmie LeBlanc, and premiered at the International Festival of Films on Art in 2023. Klara’s recent publications include Post-Mortem of the Event (Palimpsest Press, 2024), poetry that mobilises audiovisual media, transcription, waveform visualisation, and digital humanities methods, and I’mpossible collab (Gaspereau Press, 2023), a prose collection that posits essay-writing as a collaboration between author as subject and author as object of study.
Ek’t Act is Klara du Plessis se Suid-Afrikaanse debuutbundel. Ekke (Palimpsest Press, 2018) en G (Palimpsest Press, 2023)—’n samewerking met Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi wat Afrikaans, Engels en Persies in transtalige vergelyking tot mekaar stel—is plaaslik by Poetry In McGregor, Tuin van Digters, Vrystaat Kunstefees en Woordfees bekendgestel. Dié bundels is ook met lof in Die Beeld en op LitNet geresenseer. ’n Keur van Klara se gedigte verskyn in Alfred Schaffer se Nederlandse vertaling in DW B se “Stemmen uit Zuid-Afrika” uitgawe (2024). Klara werk graag interdissiplinêr. Haar beeldende kuns en klank installasies is in Suid-Afrika uitgestal by die Johannes Stegmann Galery (Dead Air, Post-Mortem of the Event series, 2024) en by die Gallery @ Glen Carlou (Hell Light Flesh series, 2023). In Kanada, stal sy by Artexte (Incipit. Scree. Explicit., 2023), Centre Clark (Scree/n, 2023) en OBORO (Event Chambers, 2024) uit. Klara woon in Montreal en vir dele van die jaar in Kaapstad.
Klara will feature at the following events celebrating the launch of Ek’t Act in South Africa:
karavanpress.com 