Karina Author, Book, Event

Book launch!

It feels like a miracle. We are going to have a socially distanced book launch for Lester Walbrugh’s story collection, Let It Fall Where It Will!

Thank you to the three literary Fairy Godmothers who are making it possible: Marion Smith of Elgin Ridge Wine Estate for providing a safe space for such an event during lockdown; Christy Weyer of Liberty Books for agreeing to sell books at the launch (in the time ‘before’ we were hoping to have the launch at her beautiful bookshop in Grabouw, but it is too small for a safe gathering of this kind); and, Bettina Wyngaard for agreeing to do the interview with Lester. Both authors grew up in Grabouw and it will be wonderful to celebrate Let It Fall Where It Will with them on their home turf.

Karina Author

Author: Nick Mulgrew

NICK MULGREW was born in Durban in 1990. He writes novels, short fiction and poetry.

Among his accolades are the 2016 Thomas Pringle Prize, the 2018 Nadine Gordimer Award, and a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship. His debut novel, A Hibiscus Coast (Karavan Press), won the 2022 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award. Since 2014 he has directed uHlanga, an acclaimed poetry press. He currently lives in Scotland, where he studies at the University of Dundee.

In 2023, Karavan Press published new editions of his short story collections, Stations (2016) and The First Law of Sadness (2017), and his latest novel, Tunnel.

Author photography by Adam Mays.

Karina Author

Author: Karen Jennings

KAREN JENNINGS is a South African writer whose novel, An Island, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. Her most recent novel, Crooked Seeds, came out in 2024 and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Karen has also published a collection of poetry, a collection of short stories, and several other books. From 2022 to 2024, Karen was the writer-in-residence with LEAP at Stellenbosch University, where she first came across a story which she reimagines in her latest work of fiction, Swartbooij & Titus.

Author photograph by Carol Coelho.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS POINTLESS AND PERFECT by Stephen Symons

“Stephen Symons’s new collection is engineered for flight, gliding its way between the heavy and the weightless, memory and forgetting. It is a self-proclaimed ‘language of feathers’ that makes this flight possible, a spiritual athleticism that brings to mind George Herbert, whose idea was that the ‘fall furthers the flight in me.’ Symons’s skill is in creating a fathomable sphere for the dimensions of war, contextualizing the enormous facts with small detail, whether referencing Amichai’s ‘diameters of bombs/and sadness of open closets’ or exploring the weightless dross of childhood in the beautiful piece ‘My son was conscripted.’ Symons creates an epicentre of violence by means of an exquisite prose poem sequence that reverberates even to the quietest poems in the book. But the work, as in all of Symons’s poetry, keeps thrusting us back into the present with all its perfect natural math as counter to aftermath: a child’s laughter; sunlight trickling over mossed stones; a ballet of cormorants. This is a beautiful book by one of South Africa’s most tender poets of witness.”

— David Keplinger, author of Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), and The Long Answer: New and Selected Poems (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2020)

ISBN: 978-1-990992-56-8

Publication date: 9 November 2020.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

STEPHEN SYMONS has published poetry and short-fiction in journals, magazines and anthologies, locally and internationally. His debut collection, Questions for the Sea (uHlanga, 2016) received an honourable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and was also shortlisted for the 2017 Ingrid Jonker Prize. His unpublished collection Spioenkop was a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (USA) in 2015. His second collection, Landscapes of Light and Loss, was published by Dryad Press in 2018.

Symons holds a PhD in History (University of Pretoria) and an MA in Creative Writing (University of Cape Town). He lives with his family in Oranjezicht, Cape Town.

Author photograph by Carol Bradley.

Karina Author

Author: Stephen Symons

STEPHEN SYMONS has published poetry and short fiction in journals, magazines and anthologies, locally and internationally. His debut collection, Questions for the Sea (uHlanga, 2016), received an honourable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and was also shortlisted for the 2017 Ingrid Jonker Prize. His unpublished collection Spioenkop was a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (USA) in 2015. His second collection, Landscapes of Light and Loss (Dryad Press), was published in 2018, and third collection, FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS POINTLESS AND PERFECT (Karavan Press), in 2020. Small Souls, a collection of collected and new poems was published in 2022 by Karavan Press. The collection was shortlisted for a South African Literary Award (2023) and includes the winning poem of the 2021 The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Competition, ‘Small Souls’. His The Algebra of Insignificance was published in 2024. Symons holds a PhD in History (University of Pretoria) and an MA in Creative Writing (University of Cape Town). He lives with his family in Oranjezicht, Cape Town. Of Salt, Dust and Love is his first collection of short stories.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Death and the After Parties by Joanne Hichens

Joanne Hichens lost first her mother, then, in quick succession, her husband, her father and her mother-in-law – two deaths anticipated, two coming as the worst kind of shock. In this memoir of grief and recovery, she writes with honesty and humour of death, our ‘constant companion’, and the stumbling journey through the country of grief. By turns searing and sparkling, her account gives compelling insight into the losses that stalk us all, while also celebrating the mainstays of life – friendship, family, and the memories of those we love and lose.

ISBN: 978-0-9946805-5-6

Publication date: 2 November 2020

Also available on Kindle: Death and the After Parties

“If you have loved, lost or grieved … then this book will resonate deeply. Searching for a new place in her changed world, Joanne Hichens reminds us that especially in our darkest moments we need to embrace our vulnerability in order to find strength. Tender, courageous, compelling.”
— Tracy Going, author of Brutal Legacy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOANNE HICHENS, author and editor, lives in Cape Town. She has edited numerous short story anthologies, including Bad Company, The Bed Book of Short Stories, Hair: Weaving & Unpicking Stories of Identity, Bloody Satisfied, the award-winning Adults Only, Incredible Journey, Die Laughing and Trade Secrets. Her crime novels are Out to Score (co-written), Divine Justice (soon to be published in the United States), and Sweet Paradise. Her YA novels, Stained and Riding the Wave, were both shortlisted for the Sanlam Literature Award. 

Author photograph by Rob Turrell.

Karina Author

Author: Joanne Hichens

JOANNE HICHENS, author and editor, lives in Cape Town. She has edited numerous short story anthologies, including Bad Company, The Bed Book of Short Stories, Hair: Weaving & Unpicking Stories of Identity, Bloody Satisfied, the award-winning Adults Only, Incredible Journey, Die Laughing and Trade Secrets. Her crime novels are Out to Score (co-written), Divine Justice (soon to be published in the United States), and Sweet Paradise. Her YA novels, Stained and Riding the Wave, were both shortlisted for the Sanlam Literature Award. Death and the After Parties is her memoir of loss, grief and love.

Author photograph by Rob Turrell.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh

‘Hi,’ he said. He had perfect teeth.
We clinked glasses, his martini with my local craft gin cocktail.
‘Let it fall where it will,’ he said.

The die is cast in Lester Walbrugh’s debut collection of stories. Set in the Western
Cape and in Japan, Let It Fall Where It Will showcases the stunning versatility of the
author. Ranging from witty to poignant, occasionally employing magic realism to
great effect, the stories capture a vibrant chorus of voices and fearlessly explore
contemporary topics of identity and sexuality while illuminating South Africa’s
troubled past and the shadows it throws on our present.

The rooms are aglow, another morning with portals of light. Its clarity is blinding.

ISBN: 978-1-990931-91-8

Publication date: 2 November 2020

“A thrilling debut … gritty and intimate. Walbrugh’s prose, whether in the Cape
vernacular or standard, illuminates a diverse world with subtlety and wit.”
— Zoë Wicomb

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LESTER WALBRUGH is from Grabouw in the Western Cape. His acclaimed short stories have been published in, among others, the anthologies of Short.Sharp.Stories and Short Story Day Africa, New Contrast and, most recently, Hair: Weaving & Unpicking Stories of Identity. He has lived in the UK and Japan and is currently back in his hometown, working on his first novel.

Author photograph by Francois F. Swanepoel.

Karina Uncategorized

Karavan Press to publish first poetry collection: FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS POINTLESS AND PERFECT by STEPHEN SYMONS

It is with delight that I share the news of Karavan Press’s first poetry collection: FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS POINTLESS AND PERFECT by Stephen Symons. As designer/typesetter, Stephen has been part of the Karavan Press family since the very beginning. It is wonderful to welcome him to the press as an author! Next year, we will also be publishing Stephen’s debut collection of short stories. But first: the poetry!

“Stephen Symons’s new collection is engineered for flight, gliding its way between the heavy and the weightless, memory and forgetting. It is a self-proclaimed ‘language of feathers’ that makes this flight possible, a spiritual athleticism that brings to mind George Herbert, whose idea was that the ‘fall furthers the flight in me.’ Symons’s skill is in creating a fathomable sphere for the dimensions of war, contextualizing the enormous facts with small detail, whether referencing Amichai’s ‘diameters of bombs/and sadness of open closets’ or exploring the weightless dross of childhood in the beautiful piece ‘My son was conscripted.’ Symons creates an epicentre of violence by means of an exquisite prose poem sequence that reverberates even to the quietest poems in the book. But the work, as in all of Symons’s poetry, keeps thrusting us back into the present with all its perfect natural math as counter to aftermath: a child’s laughter; sunlight trickling over mossed stones; a ballet of cormorants. This is a beautiful book by one of South Africa’s most tender poets of witness.”

— David Keplinger, author of Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), and The Long Answer: New and Selected Poems (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2020)

FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS POINTLESS AND PERFECT by Stephen Symons will be published in November 2020.

Stephen Symons has published poetry and short-fiction in journals, magazines and anthologies, locally and internationally. His debut collection, Questions for the Sea (uHlanga, 2016) received an honourable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and was also shortlisted for the 2017 Ingrid Jonker Prize. His unpublished collection Spioenkop was a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (USA) in 2015. His second collection, Landscapes of Light and Loss, was published by Dryad Press in 2018.

Symons holds a PhD in History (University of Pretoria) and an MA in Creative Writing (University of Cape Town). He lives with his family in Oranjezicht, Cape Town.