Sometimes, she says, when we are afraid that our own narratives are at risk of being erased, we stop investigating history, and risk becoming stagnant in the process. That is why we have an obligation to keep on interrogating the past as fully as we are able to. If there is a lesson to be had in An Island (I hasten to add that, to the story’s credit, it doesn’t trade in easy morals), it is that this obligation never comes to an end. We cannot, like Samuel, retreat to our little enclaves of memory and build walls to keep out the world. Even those of us battling ghosts from the past — and maybe especially those of us battling ghosts from the past — need to keep our noses to the wind, to the strange new forms of relation blowing in from distant shores.
Daily Maverick
POETRY IN MCGREGOR: KARAVAN POETS
Karavan Press Poets Dawn Garisch, Stephen Symons and Justin Fox read from and discuss their poetry collections
MC: Karina M. Szczurek (Karavan Press)
Sunday, 21 November: 9-10:30AM
@ Caritas | Temenos
Caritas at Temenos Cnr Voortrekker and Bree St., McGregor, Western Cape
Book your ticket here: R50
Review: An Island by Karen Jennings (2020)
Blurb
Samuel has lived alone for a long time; one morning he finds the sea has brought someone to offer companionship and to threaten his solitude…
A young refugee washes up unconscious on the beach of a small island inhabited by no one but Samuel, an old lighthouse keeper. Unsettled, Samuel is soon swept up in memories of his former life on the mainland: a life that saw his country suffer under colonisers, then fight for independence, only to fall under the rule of a cruel dictator; and he recalls his own part in its history. In this new man’s presence he begins to consider, as he did in his youth, what is meant by land and to whom it should belong. To what lengths will a person go in order to ensure that what is theirs will not be taken from them?
A novel about guilt and fear, friendship…
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SKIPPER LAUNCHES!
So Skipper was lucky, first to be able to come into existence through the skills, talents and care of Karina Szczurek founder of Karavan Press and designer Monique Cleghorn. Equally lucky to have had not one but two launches to put the wind in her sails. First at The Alma Cafe in Rosebank, then in Greyton, in Carol and Steve du Toit’s fabulously fertile garden. Below is a taste of how the boat floated….
A warm welcome from Team Alma, Richard, Retha and Jono with cover-coloured flowers by Annie Bisset 
And from Greyton Team du Toit, aside from a sunny day, was a super spread that included weevil-free ships biscuits
Karavan Press publisher Karina Szczurek and Nancy listen as Mark Stephens talks about his Deep Rooted wine that fuelled the Alma event… 
…and Carol du Toit thanks all village people: Megan Tobin, Brian and Di Dawes, Colleen Goosen and Karin…
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EVENT Brittle Paper | Q&A with Karen Jennings on The Island Prize for African Writing
For more information, please see: Brittle Paper
To register: Q&A with Karen Jennings on The Island Prize for African Writing
Wits Review: “Go With the Slow” – an interview with Dawn Garisch
Read an interview with Sunday Times/CNA Literary Awards-shortlisted Dawn Garisch in the latest issue of Wits Review (p. 72).
Somak Ghoshal reviews AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings
It’s tempting to imagine the island as a symbol of imperial ambitions, though the idea of Samuel, thwarted all the way by life, as an oppressor is also risible. If anything, An Island reveals the shifting sands of power and the persistence of inequality, even among the most wretched. Like her great literary forbearers—Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer and Coetzee—Jennings makes bold this ineradicable truth.
Mint Lounge
karavanpress.com 