Congratulations to Lester – we are so proud! – all the other shortlisted authors, and the winner of the subcategory: Nthikeng Mohlele!
Congratulations also to the winner of the Best Fiction Edited Volume subcategory: Hauntings edited by Niq Mhlongo. The anthology includes short stories by Lester Walbrugh and Joanne Hichens!
Could you entertain the commandant if it meant your survival? Can we turn horror into art and, dare we say it, humour? This is the question that Gagman – a uniquely uncompromising book by revered cartoonist Dov Fedler and his daughter Joanne Fedler – poses.
Gagman is scattered with comedian’s notes. The first one opens with the lines: “You think you’re a tough audience? I’ve died more times than you’ve belched …”
It’s these words that set the tone for the book, a Holocaust story with a difference and its certainly not the kind of book one would associate with a political and satirical cartoonist. Yet, it is written and illustrated by acclaimed South African cartoonist Dov Fedler along with his daughter Joanne.
Continue reading: Australian Jewish News
Listen to Joy Watson talk to John Maytham about her debut novel The Other Me:
Dear Cape Town, Nick Mulgrew will be in town and we would love to celebrate his debut novel with you. Please join us on the 26th of April for the Cape Town launch of A Hibiscus Coast. Nick will be in conversation with Bongani Kona. Limited seats, so please book early to avoid disappointment! Hope to see you there. Literary greetings, Karina
Please join us for the Joburg launch of Boiling a Frog Slowly by Cathy Park Kelly on 6 April at one of the best bookshops in the country, Love Books. Cathy will be in conversation with the wonderful Pamela Power. Not to be missed!
A lot stood in its way – geography, a pandemic, international lockdowns and other more mundane challenges – but, at last, we managed to be on the same continent and in one place, in a bookshop that was open and could welcome readers, and could finally celebrate the book that brought us all together: An Island. The novel itself has been through quite a lot since its official publication in December 2020. A Booker longlist, a K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award and around twenty different editions world-wide (published and planned) later, and we could officially launch Karen’s stunning novel.
Thank you to Linda and the entire team at Exclusive Books Cavendish for making the event happen, to Karen for sharing her stories with us, and to all who attended. An evening to remember!
During my teens and twenties I gorged on Holocaust books until I could read no more, sickened to a point of no return. The depravity of that particular period and its effect on me made me swear never to read one again, and I never did.
I also avoid holocaust-themed movies and particularly the recent slew superficial ‘holocaust porn’ fiction like that Tattooist of Auschwitz book who’s insulting plot left me brooding darkly for days (I didn’t read it, but read reviews describing it in execrable detail).
And so when iconic cartoonist and writer Dov Fedler (a friend) and his daughter, writer Joanne Fedler (a friend) asked me to take a look at their joint effort, Gagman, I bowed out apologetically. I could simply not deal with its background and catalyst.- the camps of the holocaust.
Also, I try not to review books by friends. But the authors are not just friends, they are dear friends. So I relented and read it over the last few days.
The book is a soaring achievement, a great unrestrained explosion of creative imagination. Part novel, part history, part polemic, part graphic novel, part comedian’s philosophical musings, part confessional, part autobiography.
It is, by design, outside of any easily defined genre.
At is core, it is the story of one man, a minor conman and wiseguy who survives the camps by making the sadistic commandant laugh everyday. By telling jokes.
If he ever stops being funny, he dies. If he is funny, the commandant kills other Jews, but not our Gagman. And so he survives, day by day, as his campmates die around him, killed because of his comic survival skills.
The plot would be clever if it stopped here, but the (short) book grows other layers. The gagman’s relationship with the commandant morphs into an important and surprising climax (I won’t spoil.)
Our hero escapes the camp, meets Goering, finds his way to New York, and hangs on to life. He finds at least some redemption, not though faith, but through his adulation of the comic book hero Superman (created in real life by two Jews from Cleveland) and eventually and definitively from continuing to share his gift of making people laugh.
This book is a entirely new and wildly inventive addition to the canon of ‘serious’ Holocaust literature, notwithstanding that it boasts Jewish humour as its psychic fuel, and it deserves a wide readership.
It now increasingly stocked in various Holocaust and similar museum bookstores worldwide, but sadly not yet with national or international retail bookstores. If you want to read it, ask your bookstore to order though Protea Distributors.
It is an important book. Even if you, like me, cannot bear to read anything related to that sad time. Make an exception of this one.
Review by Steven Boykey Sidley, first posted on the Good Book Appreciation Society FB page
Sedick got his way and Carnita moved into our flat at the beginning of February. From the minute she arrived on our doorstep with her suitcase, she was always trying to monopolise him. Needing his advice, wanting to talk to him. They would sit on the couch for hours ‘talking things through’. It felt as though I was the guest in our home. Sometimes they watched stupid TV shows until late at night. I would lie in bed, alone, the married woman whose husband was busy entertaining his sister. I remembered how he told me on our first date that Carnita was his number one priority and probably always would be. Not under my watch. There was no way on God’s earth that I was putting up with her. She couldn’t stay in the flat. But she had to be the one to make the decision to move out, with, of course, a little help from me.
On the day Carnita moved in, I cooked a crayfish curry for dinner. Precious soul that she was, Carnita was allergic to shellfish. Knowing that she was a sucker for old-fashioned dining rituals, I wanted to set the dining table with a white tablecloth, but decided not to. Sedick had chosen a tempered glass dining table for the flat, mounted on two triangular stilts also made from glass. He was insistent that we not use tablecloths. Instead, I lit the candles mounted on the wall behind the table, each set in a metal circle. Popping a bottle of champagne, I poured three glasses and handed Carnita’s to her on a little tray.
‘Is it non-alcoholic champagne?’ she said.
‘God no. What would be the point?’
‘I don’t drink any alcohol.’
That’s the thing about Carnita. She always does exactly as she’s told. No mind of her own. As if God cared, one little glass of bubbly was not going to end the world.
‘No worries,’ I said, ‘I’ll get you a glass of juice.’
After taking the rice off the stove, I called to Sedick and Carnita that they should take their places at the table. It was hard getting them to hear me; they were so busy laughing at some stupid story about an aunt who had gone to the movies and watched a film wearing her sunglasses, thinking they were 3D glasses.
When they eventually sat down at the table, I put the curry down, saying, ‘Here we go, I hope you’re going to like it. I know crayfish curry is your favourite, Carnita.’
Sedick looked aghast, ‘Oh no, Lolly! Carnita is allergic to shellfish. I told you. Why didn’t you make mutton curry?’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘I don’t remember that. I’m so sorry Carnita. I wanted to make something special for your first night with us. Now I’ve gone and ruined it.’
Carnita eyed the curry, the disappointment on her face evident.
‘No, it’s totally okay. Please don’t worry about it, Lolly. Shellfish makes me break out in a rash. I can make myself a sandwich.’
I sat down, pulling my plate towards me, ‘Are you sure? There’s some cheese in the fridge.’
The smell of coriander and garlic was making me hungry. I spooned some curry onto my plate, added a roti and settled down to eat. The crayfish was soft in my mouth. Sedick was staring at me as if he had lost something in my face. I hummed along to the sound of Celine Dion playing in the background.
‘Don’t you think we should wait for our guest to finish making her sandwich?’ Sedick asked.
Breaking off a piece of roti and dipping it into the curry sauce, I said, ‘She’s not a guest. She lives here now.’
Continue reading: Daily Maverick Life
Read also Joy’s article about the forthcoming Open Book Festival: Countdown to the Open Book Festival – A learning powerhouse that adds colour to our cognitive deficits
And book your tickets for Joy’s events at the Open Book Festival: Karavan Press authors at the Open Book Festival 2022
The Open Book Festival returns! Click here to see the full programme of the festival and please join us for the following three events featuring Karavan Press authors, Nancy Richards and Joy Watson.
Tickets available through Webtickets: Open Book Festival tickets
See you there!
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