‘Melissa Volker found a way to obsess about surfing in any conditions – by obsessing about writing about surfing! A mid-life blooming writer and water woman from South Africa, Melissa’s delicious fiction blends “surf noir” with “environmental romance suspense.” (Check out the addictive Shadow Flicker!) In our pod, we chat about the coastal topography and bathymetry of South Africa’s breaks (get out your pencils) and she indulges my obsession with South African sharks. (Did you know you can get a gig as a Shark Spotter in Cape Town?) The South African waters are wild and intimidating, and though she grew up learning to paddle on flat water in an estuary, the ocean felt menacing to her well into her 40s. She still considers herself one of the most frightened surfers in her lineup, but she has braved sharks, orcas (!!!) and kilometers of open water on paddleboards, SUP’s and longboards. She credits a community group focused on supporting women for getting her off the beach and into the lineup. She also finds inspiration, and courage, in books and courses on surfing, the ocean, and, yes, sharks. Recognizing how her own life has transformed from surfing, feeling “older, but stronger, happier, braver, and stoked” she created Saltwater Sisters with her BFF to share their love and stoke and to empower other women to experience the joy they have found themselves. Melissa wraps up with one of my fave pieces of advice so far: “Get to know the ocean, because not every day is your day.”’
You see a lot here, Agni. But you are a peculiar boy, and this is a strange place. When those two come together, things happen.
In the rural Marico district of the Northwest Province, an orphaned boy, Agni, arrives at a lonely farmhouse in a valley. There he meets Esmeralda, the old woman who never leaves the shadows of her room, and the mysterious Kagiso, who has always lived on the property. He does not know why he was brought to this place, but as he spends his days in lessons with Esmeralda and discovers the secrets of the land from Kagiso, he begins to experience occurrences, which haunt his waking hours and dreams.
Meanwhile, in a nearby town, Nikus has just finished high school. He longs to leave the Marico for the distant city and saves money by working as a handyman at the eerie old farmhouse. His only friends are the local drunk and the owner of The Outpost Deli, but Nikus also begins to spend time with the girlfriend of his best friend, who had already left for the big world. She gives Nikus hope in a different future, and together they plan to escape.
The lives of Agni and Nikus are bound together by the Marico. They are both caught between the worlds of imagination and reality, rumour and truth. While Nikus is forced to decide between his present and unknown possibilities, Agni clings to Kagiso as they witness Esmeralda’s slow descent into madness.
Nothing disappears.
The Weight of Shade is a haunting, gothic tale that explores the bearing of the past on our lives and whether we can ever escape the circumstances thrust upon us.
Publisher: Karavan Press
Publication date: May 2023
ISBN: 978-1-7764064-8-7
MICHAEL BOYD grew up in Southern Africa – between Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa – before moving to the UK, where he attended the University of Kent. He worked for some time at the Sundance, Telluride, Film Africa and Cambridge Film Festivals. He was also the director and curator of the longest-running African film festival in the UK, the Cambridge African Film Festival. He then turned to a career in teaching and returned to Africa. Having taught in the Northwest Province and Kenya, he now lives in Johannesburg, continuing to work as an English teacher. He recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand, and has published short stories in New Contrast, The Coinage Book, Active Muse, Odd Magazine and MONO Literary Journal. His story “Mama Blue” was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2023. The Weight of Shade is his debut novel.
THE BOOK In these twenty short stories of inquiry, transgression, osmosis and transformation, we embrace the fluid nature of humanity.
THE CONTRIBUTORS The anthology’s contributors are largely established South African authors who have a track record in the publishing industry, as well as exciting emerging writers. The writers include Peter-Adrian Altini, Diane Awerbuck, K. L. Bohle, Anna Hug, Kingsley Khobotlo, Yuwinn Kraukamp, Alex Latimer, Keith Oliver Lewis, Lerato Mahlangu, Shari Maluleke, David Medalie, Mabel Mnensa, Lerato Moletsane, Nadine Moonsamy, Shanice Ndlovu, Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Robyn Perros, Bridget Pitt, Lorraine Sithole, Jarred Thompson and Andrew Robert Wilson.
THE EDITORS JOANNE HICHENS has to date edited seven highly praised anthologies of South African short stories, including Bad Company, Bloody Satisfied, Adults Only and Die Laughing. She has published several crime novels, including Divine Justice and Sweet Paradise, and a memoir, Death and the After Parties.
KARINA M. SZCZUREK is the (co)editor of, among others, Touch: Stories of Contact, Encounters with André Brink, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa and Hair: Weaving and Unpicking Stories of Identity. She is also the author of Invisible Others and The Fifth Mrs Brink.
FOREWORD: Lorraine Sithole
ISBN/EAN: 978-0-9946805-7-0 PUBLICATION DATE: May 2023 PUBLISHER: Tattoo Press
TATTOO PRESS is an independent small publisher, specializing in contemporary South African short fiction.
If you are a bookseller, please contact Protea Distribution to order copies of FLUID: The Freedom to Be. If you are a reader, please ask your local bookshop to order the book for you via Protea Distribution.
“Grace is not to walk on water, but to sink without resistance. I let the darkest of thoughts overcome me. To have a child, I say, is exhausting, and he will run to me, he will fall asleep in my arms. I am nineteen years old, but my logic is sound—he who fucks a child cannot raise one.”
The tunnel had once beena passage through the world;now it was the world.
One evening in early autumn, ten people drive into a tunnel through the Cape mountains – and find themselves trapped.
As their limited supplies dwindle, what do they do? Where can they go? What will they find?
Tunnel burrows deep into the psychologies and coping strategies that connect and disconnect these protagonists in a dark, tense and compelling human drama.
An urgent new novel, told through many eyes; a journey – terrific and mystical – through despair, memory, and love.
“Nick Mulgrew is easily the best thing we’ve got.”
– Diane Awerbuck, Sunday Times
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, 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.
Everything was familiar,but not enough to be comforting.
Fourteen rich and entangled stories set on the cosmopolitan Southern African coast and its hinterland.
Journey on broken-family vacations, or into canefields where clouds of birds fill the sky. Join a postman on his jaunt into the weird world of the ultra rich, or descend into a haunting colonial purgatory.
Meet people from all walks of life as they try to navigate them, stuck between a fragmented present and an unspeakable past.
WINNER of the 2016 THOMAS PRINGLE PRIZE
SHORTLISTED for the 2015 WHITE REVIEW PRIZE
“One never gets bored in the company of Nick Mulgrew.”
– Jean-Paul Beaumier, Nuit Blanche
Publisher: This edition Karavan Press
(First published in Cape Town by David Philip Publishers in 2016)
Publication date: May 2023
ISBN: 978-0-6397-7839-6
THE FIRST LAW OF SADNESS
Mostly I hope there is no heaven,just so you’ll never see how I’m doing.
Audacious, imaginative tales of killer eagles and paintball guns, tattoo removal and animal sanctuaries, pornographers and biltong makers; of a South Africa concurrently too strange and too familiar for comfort.
With trademark poetic and spiritual flair, these stories combine comedy and grief, spectacle, sex, and nostalgia.
WINNER of the 2018 NADINE GORDIMER AWARD
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017
“Full of the possible becoming probable, of the mundane made massive, of leviathans glimpsed out of the corner of an eye.”
– Russell Grant, Mail & Guardian
“An accomplished writer [who] handles both the horror and banality of experience.”
– Diane Awerbuck, Sunday Times
Publisher: This edition Karavan Press
(First published in Cape Town by David Philip Publishers in 2017)
Publication date: May 2023
ISBN: 978-0-6397-7840-2
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, 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.
karavanpress.com 