Karina Author, Book, Distribution, Literary Awards

Karavan Press in 2025

Twenty new titles, several prize nominations, three wins, a big move and an abundance of stories to tell – that in a nutshell was 2025. And what a ride it has been; again! No wonder my body is telling me to rest. And I am about to, but before I put my keyboard away for a month of restoring my well-being, I would like to celebrate the highlights of the publishing year that is coming to an end …

PRIZE NOMINATIONS

Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings longlisted for the Women’s Prize

Land | Lines by Shari Daya and Good Hope by Nick Clelland shortlisted for the HSS Awards

In Silence My Heart Speaks by Thobeka Yose, Good Hope by Nick Clelland and Who Looks Inside by Anna Stroud longlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards

Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards

Who Looks Inside shortlisted for the UJ Debut Prize

The JDL Award for Poetry: honourable mention given to Land | Lines by Shari Daya

Good Hope by Nick Clelland shortlisted for the SALA Novel Award

A Collection of Gaps by Frankie Murrey and Lone Wolf Living by Werner Pretorius shortlisted for The Book Lounge’s Book of the Year Award

WINS

Who Looks Inside by Anna Stroud won the HSS Award for Best Fiction Emerging Author 

Love Stories for Ghosts by Alex Latimer won the HSS Award for Best Fiction Short Stories

Karavan Press won the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) Book Factory Prize for Publishing in Africa for In Silence My Heart Speaks by Thobeka Yose

IN OTHER GOOD NEWS

Mannequin Pictures optioned Good Hope by Nick Clelland

Ice Shock by Elleke Boehmer has been picked up by Valley Press and will be published in the UK next year

NEW TITLES OF 2025

Among these is our first boox (the book that is a box) – Frankie Murrey’s stunning new collection of short stories which we published in a limited, special edition – as a box containing stories and other treasures: A Collection of Gaps. 

Ek’t Act by Klara du Plessis, a collection of exquisite poetry, is our first book written in Afrikaans and English.

And I am thrilled that we are continuing with two story projects: IN OTHER STORIES edited by Kerry Hammerton, now in its second year, and KARAVAN STORIES Workshop & Anthology, now in its third year, are both thriving.

ALL ABOUT PHILIPPI

One of the greatest honours for Stephen Symons and me this year was to assist Andrew Brown with the publication of this incredible book: All About Philippi

Towards the end of 2024, Andrew visited iThemba Labantu Primary School in the crime-stricken area of Philippi, Cape Town, to talk to the Grade 7 learners about creative writing. To welcome him, the learners prepared short pieces on how they experienced life as a child growing up amidst poverty and violence. These are their unedited writings. At their request, some names have been changed and some withheld. This publication is distributed for free and aims to highlight the extraordinary trauma that our youth are exposed to every day, and their resilience and determination to express themselves nonetheless.

Andrew will be speaking about this remarkable book at the Cape Flats Book Festival 2026. Not to be missed! You can get a free copy of All About Philippi at The Book Lounge.

INDEED BOOKS

Recognising a need for a carefully curated platform where self-published authors can find a home, Kerry Hammerton and I started INDEED BOOKS. Our first three titles:

COFFEE WITH KARAVAN PRESS

A new tradition began at Casa Karavan this year: I hosted five Coffees with Karavan Press – Saturday mornings when readers and writers gathered at my home to chat about their books, the publishing journey and their favourite reads. I loved every one of these mornings and will continue hosting them in 2026.

THE BIG MOVE

Karavan Press had to change distributors this year and we are thrilled that we have now successfully moved to our new distribution partner – BOOKSITE.

All Karavan Press and Indeed Books titles can be ordered by booksellers via Booksite now. Together, we also continue bringing the titles we assist in distributing in South Africa to our local readers.

It has been an astounding year. Despite and because of its many challenges, Karavan Press was forced to grow and restructure and find new ways of being in the world. Not all of it went smoothly, and I have dropped many balls in the process and could not deliver on all my promises this year, but I am not giving up – and I hope that some waits are worth it.

I would like to thank EVERYONE who makes Karavan Press possible – the journey so far has surpassed all my expectations and my wildest dreams. I would like to especially thank the authors who have been waiting patiently for me to deliver on my promises. (The good thing about having to put my keyboard away is that I can finally tackle the pile of manuscripts that has been waiting to be read for a very looooooong time …)

It is time for rest, for Festive Season and holiday reading, and for another amazing year for Karavan Press, Indeed Books and our Friends!

Happy reading and writing!

Karina Author, Book

SECRETS: Karavan Stories 2025

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

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 you are holding in your hands took shape.
We chose the theme for the anthology – secrets – within the group. Contributors could work with it 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 ‘secrets’ in wonderfully intriguing ways, inviting us to turn the pages with curiosity, anticipation and, occasionally, with a sinking feeling of dread.
I would like to thank all contributing authors for embarking on this journey with Karavan Press: your stories confirm something about local authors that has never really been a secret – you rock! A big thank you to Monique Cleghorn and Stephen Symons for the stunning design of our anthology. To our readers: enjoy!

Karina M. Szczurek
Cape Town, December 2025

Contributors: Lucienne Argent, Zubayr Charles, Christine Coates, Máire Fisher, Nina Geraghty, Rob Glenister, Merle Levin, Michelle A. Meyer, Firdose Moonda, Helen Nevin, Joëlle Searle, Jana van Niekerk

ISBN: 978-1-0492-2960-7

Publication date: December 2025

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Let’s Be Legends by Chantal Stewart

Cover artwork, ‘Echoes’ © Liffey Joy

Shouldn’t everyone have such a night
without thoughts
without words
only taste and touch and smell
and the light behind closed eyes
slightly red
slightly yellow?

‘In Let’s Be Legends, Chantal Stewart leads the reader into her intimate life and asks us to bear witness to her love of the land and family, nature and the night sky, and to her connection to a foreign city and to loves. She also shows us the comfort of a mature love, getting married and building a home with that love. At the centre of this collection is the curious poet who asks us to pay attention to the small things – the tortoise, a field mouse, red dust, the smell of paraffin, pink toenails, eggshells, a child’s kite; and to big issues – gender-based violence, war, refugees and displacement. Her call is for you to feel life. You also have to admire a poet who uses the word paraphernalia and makes it sing.’—KERRY HAMMERTON

CHANTAL STEWART is a medical doctor and has worked in an academic hospital for most of her life. Her first love has always been writing and she completed an MA in Creative Writing at UCT. Her debut novel, The Veil of Maya, was published in 2022 and was joint winner of the NIHSS Award for Best Novel in the Fiction Category (2023) and the UCT Book Award (2024). She has also published poems and short stories in Women Flashing (2006), Writing the Self (2008), Twist (2006) and Stanzas (2021, 2024). She facilitates writing workshops and retreats for beginner and experienced writers. Let’s Be Legends is her first collection of poems.

Publication date: December 2025

ISBN: 978-0-6398626-9-9

Karina Author

Author: Chantal Stewart

CHANTAL STEWART is a medical doctor and has worked in an academic hospital for most of her life. Her first love has always been writing and she completed an MA in Creative Writing at UCT. Her debut novel, The Veil of Maya, was published in 2022 and was joint winner of the NIHSS Award for Best Novel in the Fiction Category (2023) and the UCT Book Award (2024). She has also published poems and short stories in Women Flashing (2006), Writing the Self (2008), Twist (2006) and Stanzas (2021, 2024). She facilitates writing workshops and retreats for beginner and experienced writers. Let’s Be Legends is her first collection of poems.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Blackwell’s Oxford Events: Elleke Boehmer ICE SHOCK with Lara Feigel

Blackwell’s, Broad Street Oxford

Dec 3 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm GMT

Overview

Join us for a discussion chaired by Lara Feigel with Elleke Boehmer, author of the new book ‘Ice Shock’

Ice Shock

The year is 2010. An Icelandic volcano has thrown an ash cloud into the atmosphere and, across the world, planes have stopped flying. Leah and Niall, twenty-somethings in love, find themselves strangely restless, and set out on different but parallel paths; Niall travels to a polar station in Antarctica, where the strange, lonely beauty of the ice mirrors the fragility of his hopes, while Leah studies writing in England, surrounded by tradition yet struggling to find her place.

Separated by thousands of miles, but determined to stay connected, they learn that true communication can be as fragile as the melting landscape between them. Ice Shock is a love story that asks what it means to stay close even when we are far apart – and how love can endure, in a world changing catastrophically by the day.

“Ice Shock is a propulsive and eerie love story told frame by perilous frame. Threat lurks everywhere in the gaps, beneath surfaces that shift constantly like the melting ice floes of the characters’ real and imagined Antarctic worlds.”

— Jason Allen-Paisant, winner of the Forward Prize and T. S. Eliot Prize in 2023

Elleke Boehmer

Elleke Boehmer is the author of the novels Screens against the Sky (shortlisted David Higham Prize, 1990), Bloodlines (shortlisted SANLAM prize, 2000), Nile Baby (2008) and The Shouting in the Dark (2015; co-winner Olive Schreiner prize, 2015–18), as well as the short-story collection Sharmilla and Other Portraits (2010). To the Volcano, her second short story collection, appeared in 2019. The story ‘Supermarket Love’ was commended for the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize. Her fiction probes the delicate interface between our private and public selves in haunting and unforgettable ways.

She is also Professor of World Literature in English at the University of Oxford, and a founding figure in the field of postcolonial literature. Her edition of Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys was a 2004 summer bestseller, and her acclaimed biography of Nelson Mandela (2008) has been translated into Arabic, Malaysian, Thai, Kurdish, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. She has published several other books including Stories of Women (2005), the anthology Empire Writing (1998), Indian Arrivals: Networks of British Empire (2015), and Postcolonial Poetics (2018).

Lara Feigel

Lara Feigel is the author of four highly acclaimed works of cultural history and a novel. Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at King’s College London and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she reviews regularly for the Guardian and contributes to a range of BBC radio programmes. Her new book, Custody: The Secret History of Mothers comes out in January 2026.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Swartbooij & Titus by Karen Jennings

IT WAS IN 1739 when the wars in the northern frontier of the Cape began. Ten settler farmers with ox wagons and trading goods, and several Khoisan servants, spent a month with the Groot Namaqua at the kraal of Chief Gal. Bribed with promises of cattle, the servants broke into the kraal. The foray resulted in several deaths, including that of the Chief. The settlers, however, reneged on their promise …

Two individuals played a key role in these events, the formerly loyal Khoisan servant Swartbooij and his son Titus. Enraged by being tricked, the two incited various raids on the settler community in retaliation. The ensuing cycles of revenge eventually led to a brutal massacre of Khoisan women and children.

Part prose, part poetry, Swartbooij and Titus reimagines the story of the unyielding father and son and the times that shaped them.

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 the story of Swartbooij and Titus.

Publication date: November 2025

ISBN: 978-0-6398626-6-8

Karina Author, Book, Review

Nancy Richards reviews Tunnel by Nick Mulgrew

I have been in some unexpected, uncomfortable and unsettling situations in my book journeys. But never quite like the one that stretches out in Tunnel. The title itself conjures a certain inescapability with a darkness, at the end of which there is not always light. A tunnel is described as an ‘artificial passage – especially one built through a hill or under a building road or river’. It’s the artificial bit, that gets to me, it’s not natural and in this particular tunnel, it’s certainly not normal.

It starts out innocently enough with Andreas and Samuel sniping at each other in the familiar, but spikey the way that couples getting on each other’s nerves do. They’re in Samuel’s inherited Oldsmobile, a bad start, and headed for a much-needed weekend away – on a road that goes through a mountain, via, yup, a tunnel. If you’re from the Cape, you’ll recognize which one. But if you’re phobic about breaking down in a tunnel, better stop reading now. Because this is when the you-know-what hits the fan. Suddenly they’re not alone. Enter a khaki-clad woman just flown in from Harare, in a red rental. Turns out she’s a location scout, but the point is, she’s competent, not so the boys. And then there’s the robotic radio message. And just when you think you’ve got this, clearly this is no ordinary aborted road trip. ‘Ledi and the man’s eyes met as they listened. In the orange light of the tunnel, his eyes shone like amber, studded with inclusions, a glistening stillness at odds with his demeanor.’ Nor is it no ordinary piece of writing.

More characters enter the uncompromising tunnel and psychologies start to clash – it’s complicated, there’s a minibus full of previously screaming little girls, a diabetic driver and ‘they’, Mo, a bristly roadblock officer, with personal issues. There are ominous seismic noises off and the insistent Voice of South West.

Actually, all the entrapped have got issues, one way or another – and they’re all starting to snipe. I couldn’t possibly tell you what happens without giving you an escape route – but there’s a wreck, ants, the incisors of a grey-brown baby and a desiccating lack of liquid and food involved. Apocalyptic springs to mind. I can only suggest you take the book to bed with a large glass of water, a strong nerve and hopefully someone who will give you a reassuring hug. It’s just a story. I think.

First published on the Good Book Appreciation Society.