Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: The Other Me by Joy Watson

Willing myself not to look away, I tried to make out her features and realised, with a jolt, that she looked exactly like me. Like me, but different. Something about how she held herself told me that this girl was as strong as steel. I knew instinctively that I should not look away. Then the Other Me smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry Lolly. I’ve got this.’

Who is Lolly, really? And who is the man who claims to love her? What happens when they drop their carefully constructed masks and allow their real selves to be seen?

Chillingly intriguing, Joy Watson’s debut novel paints a portrait of a woman who will do anything to escape the damage of her past, refusing to accept that she can’t have it all, no matter what the price. The moral ambiguities and shifting revelations of The Other Me create an ingenious page-turner that will draw you in and confound you at every turn.

‘I couldn’t stop reading The Other Me. It is so many things – funny, dark, complex, heart-breaking. It haunted me long after I was done. Not to be missed.’ — Qarnita Loxton

‘Some books speak to the times. The Other Me is both an artistic and ethical enterprise. In the face of such staggering rates of violence against women, Joy Watson accomplishes something that our society repeatedly fails to do, which is to listen well to survivors of domestic violence no matter who they are.’ — Bongani Kona

‘Twisting, turning and brimming with intrigue, The Other Me tells the story of a woman determined to reinvent herself, the man she meets, the lengths each will go to get what they want, and how they deal with the people who stand in their way. Joy Watson is a masterful storyteller and her novel wouldn’t let me sleep until I had turned the last page.’ — Máire Fisher

Publication date: March 2022

ISBN: 978-0-620-96485-2

Also available on Kindle: The Other Me by Joy Watson

JOY WATSON is a feminist researcher and writer. Her areas of specialisation are analysing public policy and service delivery, as well as tracking funding flows from the perspective of building social equity. She has many years of experience in developing feminist responses to public policy and has worked on research initiatives in South Africa as well as internationally, including for the UN Habitat’s Safer Cities programme and UN Women initiatives. She is currently Chair of the Board of the Women on Farms Project and sits on the Coordinating Committee of the Coalition of Feminists for Social Change. Joy is also in the process of finalising her PhD on rape and public policy at the University of Stellenbosch. Together with Amanda Gouws, she has co-edited the book, Nasty Women Talk Back: A Collection of Feminist Essays on the Global Women’s Marches (Imbali, 2018). You can find her book reviews and reflections on life and its joys and sorrows on the pages of Daily Maverick Life.

Author photograph: Nazreen Essack

Karina Author, Book, Event

AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings to be launched at EB Cavendish

After the incredible journey that Karen Jennings and An Island have travelled since the publication of the highly acclaimed novel, it is simply wonderful to be able to finally launch the book officially at a bookshop in the company of the author, who is now living in South Africa again. Please join us on the 24th of March at Exclusive Books for this special occasion!

Karen will be in conversation with Karina Szczurek. We look forward to seeing you there and celebrating together!

Karina Author, Book, Event, Interview

Women power at Liberty Books

When Christy Weyer of Liberty Books mentioned the thematic connections she spotted between Cathy Park Kelly’s memoir, Boiling a Frog Slowly, and Penny Haw’s novel, The Wilderness Between Us, I was thrilled about the possibility of her exploring the themes in a conversation with the two authors. Last night, Christy made it happen, and it was magic! The three inspiring women spoke about relationships, abuse, survival and empowerment, and the people who gathered in the audience were enthralled.

Thank you, Christy, Cathy and Penny – and Liberty Books! And thank you to all who attended, especially those who shared their stories of abuse and survival.

We also celebrated the reprint of Cathy’s memoir, Boiling a Frog Slowly – congratulations, Cathy!

Karina Author, Book, Event

Cathy Park Kelly & Penny Haw at Liberty Books, 10 March 2022

When Christy Weyer of Liberty Books read Penny Haw’s novel, The Wilderness Between Us, and Cathy Park Kelly’s memoir, Boiling a Frog Slowly, she immediately saw the fascinating connection between the two books and offered to host an event with the authors. It’s happening at the bookshop on the 10th of March and you will not want to miss it!

“I’ve been fangirling about Cathy Park Kelly’s Boiling a Frog Slowly all the way down to my tippy toes and am delighted to announce that Cathy will be visiting Liberty on Thursday 10 March to discuss her heart-breaking, soul-healing, truth-telling and life-affirming memoir!
Cathy will be joined by another wonderful wordsmith who delves with sensitivity & acuity into women’s interior lives and relationships,” says Christy. “The Wilderness Between Us places a group of old friends on a hiking trail in the Tsitstikamma, puts them under pressure and then meticulously examines the fault-lines, fallout and freedom to find and fortify truer, stronger selves. With its emotional acuity and focus on relationships and resilience, The Wilderness Between Us resonates with Cathy Park Kelly’s Boiling a Frog Slowly, and I’m delighted to announce that Penny and Cathy will both be at Liberty Books on Thursday 10 March to discuss their beautiful books!”

Karina Author, Book

Boiling a Frog Slowly launched at the Alma Café

There are certain books one wishes would never have to be written, but because our reality is what it is, we can only be grateful to authors like Cathy Park Kelly for facing the darkest corners of our existence and exposing them to the light of understanding and healing. Cathy’s wrenchingly honest and powerful memoir about the abuse she suffered at the hands of a partner, Boiling a Frog Slowly, was launched at The Alma Café last night. The launch was postponed in December because of the fourth wave, but it could finally happen. Family, friends, authors, readers and the resident cat gather at the wonderful venue and celebrated Cathy and her empowering book with Alma’s legendary Cornish pasties and lemon meringue pies. Cathy was in conversation with local writer and editor, Máire Fisher. It was a beautiful evening and once again I applaud Cathy’s courage in bringing this book into the world.

Thank you to everyone who attended, and mountains of gratitude to The Folks at the café for making their space available for literary events and always making us feel so warmly welcomed.

Karina Author, Book

Melissa Sussens to publish her debut collection of poetry with Karavan Press

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Melissa Sussens will be publishing her superbly crafted debut poetry collection, Slaughterhouse, with Karavan Press later this year. I have been reading Melissa’s poetry across literary magazines and the web for about two years now and it has always moved and inspired me. It will be a joy to share it with readers in book form. Poetry lovers are in for a true literary treat!

Melissa Sussens is a queer veterinarian and poet. Her work has appeared in Stanzas Poetry Magazine, SFWP Quarterly and Isele Magazine, among many others. She has performed at the Poetry In McGregor festival, Off The Wall and The Red Wheelbarrow where she also hosts poetry readings. Melissa placed 2nd in the New Contrast National Poetry Prize and was amongst the winners of the ClemenGold Writing Competition in 2020. She was selected for the Poetry for Human Rights anthology, Between the Silence, in 2021 and has been nominated for Best of the Net. By day she works as a small animal veterinarian and whenever she’s not doctoring animals, she can be found immersed in writing, editing, or reading poems. Melissa lives in Cape Town with her fiancée and their two dogs. Find her on Instagram and Twitter @melissasussens.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Karavan Press authors at the Adam Small Fees

Cathy Park Kelly, Nancy Richards and Karen Jennings will be participating in the Adam Small Literary Festival in Pniel this year. 

SATURDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2022 
PNIEL MUSEUM TEETUIN

13.45 – 14.15: Cathy Park – Boiling a Frog Slowly: A Memoir of Love Gone Wrong
14.15 – 14.45: Nancy Richards – The Skipper's Daughter
14.45 – 15.15: Karen Jennings – An Island: Longlisted for Booker Prize

Adam Small Fees

Karina Author, Book, Distribution, Interview

SA Jewish Report: ‘Dov Fedler’s Gagman makes its deadline’ by Peta Krost Maunder

When acclaimed veteran South African cartoonist Dov Fedler celebrated his 82nd birthday recently, he received a gift of the first copy of a book he had spent 35 years working on.

Titled Gagman, the book isn’t full of political and satirical cartoons as one would expect from Fedler, but a Holocaust story with a difference.

The book was conceived in 1985 when, said Fedler, “the story just jumped into my head” and he sat down and “wrote it in a flash”. The story is about a comedian in a concentration camp who survives by entertaining the commandant. “He would give his soul for a new joke,” said Fedler. “He knew that the moment he was no longer entertaining, he would die.”

Fedler said it took him until 1995 to understand where his idea had come from. “I was living on deadlines and every single day, I had to produce a cartoon and it had to be funny. If you break down the word deadline, you have dead and line. So, the story was a metaphor for myself times a thousand. It was me telling history and my story in a way.”

He revealed this recently in a video conversation with his daughter, Joanne, an accomplished author in her own right, and Lewis Levin, a family friend and the architect of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Museum.

“I felt like I grew up with Gagman,” Joanne said. “I remember my dad talking about him when I was a teenager and early adult. I remember writing a poem about him when my dad was 54, and now I’m 54.”

The project went on for many years and took on many iterations. “It wasn’t just the writing of the book but the many illustrations that took time, and it got to a point where it felt like the project was never going to come to fruition,” said Joanne.

Fedler battled to tell a story about someone who had lived through the camps, which wasn’t his own experience. However, the Holocaust certainly played a role in his life.

South African Jewish Report

Continue reading: South African Jewish Report

Karina Author, Book, Review

Joanne Hichens reviews BOILING A FROG SLOWLY by Cathy Park Kelly for the Sunday Times

‘Boiling a Frog Slowly’ is an intensely personal memoir about escaping abuse

Cathy Park Kelly’s compelling and painstakingly honest book describes the insidiousness of abuse and how hard it is to leave a toxic and violent relationship

Boiling a Frog Slowly is a courageous, emotionally sincere exposé of a romantic relationship that slides into increasingly disdainful and abusive territory, when love indeed goes wrong. It’s about how terribly difficult it is, as a woman, to extricate oneself from a toxic, manipulative relationship in which one is treated with violence and contempt.

Right from the opening scene, which describes violence so extreme that I caught my breath, I was hooked and wanted to know how this could have happened to a woman I know — albeit on the periphery — as professional, caring and compassionate. What led to the point where Cathy was held down by her partner, as he scrawled the words slut, whore and c**t across her breasts with a red Koki pen?

Continue reading: Sunday Times