Karina Book

Karavan Stories 2025: Workshop and Anthology

After the success of Tiger: Karavan Stories 2023 and Temperature: Karavan Stories 2024, be part of the third Karavan Stories anthology! We will meet again for a writing workshop at the end of April and together analyse what makes a good short story, read examples, go through a few writing exercises, begin exploring ideas for new stories and in the following months write, edit and compile an anthology of stories which will be published by Karavan Press.

WORKSHOP DATE: Saturday, 26 April 2025, 9:00 – 15:00

VENUE: 6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town

PUBLICATION DATE: October / November 2025

FEE: R3 900

Includes: workshop, catering during the day of the workshop, guidance and feedback, editing, proofreading, 5 copies of the anthology and the option to submit your next manuscript to Karavan Press.

Maximum number of participants: 14 (ONLY 4 SPOTS STILL AVAILABLE, book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment).

To book your spot, contact Karina: Karavan Stories 2025

FACILITATOR / EDITOR:

Karina M. Szczurek is the author and (co)editor of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. She won the MML Literature Award in the Category English Drama in 2012, received the Thomas Pringle Award for a portfolio of ad hoc reviews from the English Academy of Southern Africa in 2018 and the HSS Award for Best Fiction Edited Volume in 2024. She is a board member of Short Story Day Africa. In 2019, she founded Karavan Press, an independent publishing house, and a year later, established the Philida Literary Award.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: The Fourth Boy by Andrew Robert Wilson

I’d had my flash of that. I’d let down the drawbridge and got galloped over. I think. It was not a sense of self-pity. More like exhaustion. Like twenty years crushed into a dense mass the equivalent of a day. A day or so where time did not slow down, but stood completely, beautifully still.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The fondly nurtured idyll of the Karoo as a place of tranquillity is shattered when recently graduated journalist Grant Asher’s first real investigative assignment in the mid-1980s draws him into a series of unexplained murders in three quiet Karoo towns. There are two mystifying links: the victims were once part of a group of five hundred Polish-Jewish children housed at an orphanage in Oudtshoorn during the Second World War, and each victim was missing the tip of their little finger, removed post mortem. Exquisitely written, Wilson’s debut novel will stay with you long after the last page is turned. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANDREW ROBERT WILSON has been in the media and entertainment industry for nearly forty years, variously as actor, voice artist, TV presenter, writer for television and film, and series director of international TV formats. He was a theatre critic for the Mail & Guardian in the late 1990s, and worked extensively over the years in wildlife and conservation television. He was one of twenty authors published in the Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University in 1985. The Fourth Boy is his debut novel.

Publication date: February 2025

ISBN: 978-1-0672224-4-4

Karina Author

Author: Andrew Robert Wilson

ANDREW ROBERT WILSON has been in the media and entertainment industry for nearly forty years, variously as actor, voice artist, TV presenter, writer for television and film, and series director of international TV formats. He was a theatre critic for the Mail & Guardian in the late 1990s, and worked extensively over the years in wildlife and conservation television. He was one of twenty authors published in the Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University in 1985. The Fourth Boy is his debut novel.

Karina Author, Book, Event, Literary Award, Prize

Celebrating ‘What Remains’ by Dawn Garisch

Last year was a remarkable year for Karavan Press in all kinds of ways, but specifically in terms of literary awards. Karavan Press authors won five major awards, two of which recognised What Remains by Dawn Garisch. The story collection won the HSS Award for Best Fiction Short Stories and SALA’s Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award in 2024. In order to celebrate this wonderful achievement, we will be relaunching the collection at Exclusive Books Cavendish on Wednesday, 29 January, 5.30 for 6PM. Dawn will be in conversation with Mathapelo Mofokeng. Please join us for the celebration!

To RSVP, click here: Exclusive Books Cavendish

Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

Cape Flats Book Festival 2025

The first book festival of 2025 is just around the corner – Cape Flats Book Festival – and we are delighted to announce the following events featuring Karavan Press authors:

SATURDAY, 1 February, 10:45-11:25 | IN OTHER STORIES

SATURDAY, 1 February, 11:40-12:20 | STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN

SATURDAY, 1 February, 12:35-13:15 | COURAGEOUS SURVIVORS: OVERCOMING A TRAUMATIC PAST

SATURDAY, 1 February, 15:20-16:00 | TRIBUTE TO POET IN EXILE: ATHOL WILLIAMS

Lester Walbrugh will also be at the Festival, speaking about the book he co-wrote with Karin Kortje – not to be missed!

SUNDAY, 2 February, 12:45-13:25 | DIE HELE STORIE / THE WHOLE STORY

For details about other events, please see:

Cape Flats Book Festival

Please join us for these two days of literary wonder!

Karina Author, Book

TEMPERATURE: Karavan Stories 2024

Temperature is the result of the Karavan Stories Workshop & Anthology project, now in its second year.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All the contributors gathered for a writing workshop at the end of April. Together, we discussed the intricacies of the short story, went through several writing exercises, decided on a theme for our anthology and began exploring ideas for individual stories. In the following months, we kept in touch, drafting and redrafting, until the book took shape.

The theme – temperature – was inspired by global and intimate, personal developments. Climate change continues to dominate our weather and news cycles. Heated international debates require cool and collected thinking for the sake of all our futures around the world. It has been an exceptionally difficult year for many – what allows us to survive, and thrive, is the warmth and kindness of our connections. Temperature is testimony to this simple truth.

Contributors could work with the theme in any way they wished, either reimagine it, see it as a springboard or a metaphor, or let their imaginations soar. The stories which emerged interpret ‘temperature’ in the most innovative ways, but they have one thing in common: hot off the press, they inspire reflections on interdependence – between individuals, communities and continents, as well as between humanity and our environment.

I would like to thank all contributing authors for embarking on this journey with Karavan Press: your stories are a cooling balm for a scorching reality. A big thank you to Monique Cleghorn for the exquisite design of our anthology. To our readers: enjoy!

Karina M. Szczurek
Cape Town, December 2024

Contributors: Sue Brown, Christine Coates, Gail Gilbride, Kerry Hammerton, Karen Horn, Karin Lijnes, Ciaran R. Maidwell, Firdose Moonda, Consuelo Roland, Anne Schlebusch, Joëlle Searle, Philisiwe Twijnstra, Alexandra Wood

Cover artwork: Hannes Meiring

Publisher: Karavan Press

Publication date: December 2024

ISBN: 978-1-0672224-3-7

The book will be available in all good bookshops in the new year. Please contact Karavan Press directly if you would like to get copies of the book earlier.

Karina Author, Book

New edition of award-winning The Veil of Maya by Chantal Stewart

We are delighted to announce that Karavan Press is publishing a new edition of Chantal Stewart‘s highly acclaimed, award-winning novel, The Veil of Maya.

WINNER OF THE 2023 NIHSS BEST FICTION NOVEL AWARD & THE 2024 UCT BOOK AWARD

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lena Brown, a geneticist who spends her days in Cape Town comfortably engrossed in laboratory work, receives a call to investigate an outbreak of madness amongst a group of men in a small town in rural Swaziland. She is excited to revisit the place of her childhood holidays. However, she does not realise how this journey will change her, challenging her beliefs and her perceptions of the world.

The novel is both a medical mystery and love story. Just before leaving Cape Town, Lena meets the charismatic astronomer Gabriel Powell, and finds herself attracted to the mystery which she senses within him. Circumstances intervene which force her to confront issues of trust and deception, secrets and loss.

The Veil of Maya slips between the worlds of Cape Town, Sutherland, Swaziland and England. At its core is a powerful story of love and life.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

A story that moves seamlessly through the world of stars, science and different cultures.

– Gail Gilbride Bohle, author of Under the African Sun and Cat Therapy

CHANTAL STEWART is a medical doctor, author and poet. She works fulltime in a government hospital and in her spare time facilitates creative writing workshops. She has published poetry and short stories in Women Flashing (2006), Writing the Self (2008), Twist (2006), and Stanzas (2021, 2023). She lives with her husband and two dogs.

See also: UCT Staff Awards

Publisher: Karavan Press

(First edition published by Minimal Press in 2022)

Publication date: December 2024

ISBN: 978-1-0370-2186-2

The book will be available in all good bookshops in the new year.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Self-portrait of a Guava launched at Kalk Bay Books

We launched Lucienne Argent‘s debut poetry collection, Self-portrait of a Guava, at Kalk Bay Books last night. How lovely to welcome this fresh, beautiful new voice into the local book community! Lucienne was in conversations with Finuala Dowling, her mentor of many years. Thank you both for a wonderful evening of poetic celebrations!

And thank you to everyone who miraculously managed to get through the gridlocked traffic to join us for the occasion. It was a magical evening.

Thank you to Kalk Bay Books for hosting the event, and to John Maytham for the wine!