Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

In Silence My Heart Speaks by Thobeka Yose to be launched as part of Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival

“Can we truly celebrate 30 years of democracy when so many women and children are still prevented from freely and fairly exercising their right to democracy, freedom, equality and above all, humanity?” These words from Marlene le Roux, CEO of Artscape the Theatre Centre, sum up the thinking behind this year’s Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival (AWHF), planned in association with Woman Zone for Women’s Month. — LitNet

Together with the AWHF and Woman Zone, we will be launching Thobeka Yose‘s inspirational memoir, In Silence My Heart Speaks, during the AWHF. Thobeka will be in conversation with Nancy Richards, who has accompanied Thobeka on her writing journey from the beginning and who wrote a beautiful foreword to the book:

Writing your own story, I imagine, must be like running barefoot. Whatever the ground texture, you are going to feel it intensely. But you have to finish. At the end of her ‘run’, I suspect, Thobeka Yose may have had sore soles, not only from reliving her own story, but that of her mother. Neither of them easy journeys.
When I first met Thobeka at a group workshop with Ntsiki Sigege at the Artscape Resource Centre back in 2016, she, like everyone else, shared a bit about herself. It was clear she’d introspected long and hard on her situation. But instead of shying away from the issues, she’d obviously decided to confront and interrogate them, both from her own perspective and those of others whose actions had had such impact on her.
I suggested she write it down as a way, perhaps, of making sense of it and getting it off her chest. The workshop over, richer for the shared experiences, we all went our separate ways.
A few short months later, I was amazed to get an email from Thobeka saying, ‘I took your advice and wrote! My manuscript is with a publisher as we speak.’ …

It is truly special for us to be launching this stunning book at Artscape and with Woman Zone – spaces that nurture and support women’s creativity and make dreams come true. And how fitting that it is during August and the AWHF. Please join us for this wonderful occasion on Saturday, 17 August, at 10:30 a.m.

Full programme of the Festival: AWHF

About the memoir:

In Silence My Heart Speaks

I show my scars now with pride because I survived. This is me owning my story, all of it, the good and the bad.

A searing and brave memoir chronicling the author’s resilience, compassion and growth as she moves from a childhood of trauma, through the challenges of dealing with the early loss of her beloved husband and becoming a single parent as well as subsequently accompanying her child on a difficult journey of self-discovery, to a life of acceptance and forgiveness. Thobeka Yose confronts the taboos surrounding mental health, abuse, betrayal and sexual identity with fearless honesty, kindness and understanding that will inspire countless others.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Kerry Hammerton and Athambile Masola reading at The Red Wheelbarrow

Kerry Hammerton and Athambile Masola will be reading to us at The Commons in Muizenberg on Wednesday, 7th August.

Kerry Hammerton lives in Cape Town, South Arica and has an MA in Creative Writing. She has published poetry and prose in various South African and international literary journals and anthologies – including Living While Feminist (Kwela Books, 2020), The Only Magic We Know (Modjaji Books, 2020) and Tiger (Karavan Press, 2023). Her fourth poetry collection, afterwards, was published in 2023 (Karavan Press). Kerry is a freelance tutor and supervisor for the Rhodes School of Literature and Language on their Masters in Creative Writing programme. You can find her on Instagram: kerry_hammerton

Athambile Masola is a writer, researcher and an award-winning poet based in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her debut collection of poetry is written in isiXhosa, Ilifa (Uhlanga Press, 2021). She is the co-author of the children’s history book series, Imbokodo: Women who shape us (Jacana Media, 2022), with Dr Xolisa Guzula. Her latest book is a collaboration with Makhosazana Xaba; a collection of Noni Jabavu’s columns from 1977, A stranger at Home (Tafelberg, 2023).

As always, the reading by the featured poet(s) will be followed by an open mic session for poets from the audience. Poets are welcome to read from their own work as well as from the work of a favourite poet.
 
Date: Wednesday, 7th August 2024
Time: 19:30
Venue: The Commons, Surfer’s Corner, Beach Rd, Muizenberg, Cape Town, 7970
phone: 083 799 8294

Karina Author, Book, Event

Land | Lines by Shari Daya to be launched at Salon Hecate

We are very excited to welcome this extraordinary debut collection into the world: Land | Lines by Shari Daya. The first time Shari read from it before publication was at Salon Hecate during the Books on the Bay Festival earlier this year, and so it is only fitting to launch the actual book at Salon Hecate’s home, the wonderful Noordhoek Art Point Gallery, where all the arts meet and mingle, during the next Salon which will be taking place on Tuesday, 6 August.

Join us in a celebration of this exquisite poetry collection and the beauty of the space that is Noordhoek Art Point’s Salon Hecate!

Karina Author, Book, Event

DAYSPRING by C. J. Driver launched at Clarke’s Bookshop

It was a bittersweet evening, a celebration and a longing. When C. J. (Jonty) Driver passed away last year, he left behind a memoir, which his friend and brother-in-law, J. M. Coetzee, edited and wrote the Foreword to. Nick Mulgrew at uHlanga Press and I at Karavan Press had the privilege of co-publishing Dayspring, and we launched it this week at Clarke’s Bookshop.

Two family friends, Maeder Osler (who features prominently in the book and could speak to the recalled memories) and David Attwell (who knew Jonty and has always admired his work), were in conversation about the memoir and invited questions and comments from the audience, which filled the bookshop to the brim.

I would like to thank everyone involved in bringing this book to life and in launching it! It is a pleasure to be able to share Dayspring with readers. The book includes six of Jonty’s poems selected by J. M. Coetzee, photographs and a deeply moving Afterword by Jonty’s children, Tamlyn, Dax and Dominic Driver.

Dayspring is a recollection of Driver’s South African youth – his childhood as a reverend’s son in Kroonstad and Grahamstown-Makhanda preceding his extraordinary student years at the University of Cape Town, during which he edited the student newspaper Varsity and became enmeshed in radical student politics.

As president of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students, Driver was detained by the security police, tortured and imprisoned in solitary confinement in Cape Town. Even after fleeing to England, Driver remained a bête-noire for the apartheid authorities, with ex-president B. J. Vorster keeping personal notes on Driver’s activities.

But all that comes later in his life. Dayspring is a tender and deeply personal book, offering an intimate picture of a family coming to terms with the losses of the Second World War. It is the story of a father and son recognising their differing beliefs, and of a young man navigating the joys and pitfalls of romance. As a direct descendant of the 1820 Settlers, Driver examines the contradictory beliefs and institutions of the South Africa he grew up in – particularly its boarding schools – with unique insight and humour.

Throughout the reader discovers the moments of inspiration, failure and literary exchange that were crucial to the development of Driver’s fiction, celebrated internationally during his lifetime, as well as his poetry, which, even before his death in 2023, has been lauded as one of the most significant bodies of work by a modern South African poet.

In Dayspring, we are witness to the formation of a sensitive, incisive intellect; someone who did not simply engage with the world through literature, but faced up to it, too. This is an extraordinary book. 

Karina Author, Book, Event

Dayspring by C. J. Driver to be launched at Clarke’s Bookshop

Karavan Press and uHlanga invite you to the Cape Town launch of C. J. Driver‘s posthumous memoir Dayspring, edited and with a foreword by J. M. Coetzee. The book will be launched with a discussion between David Attwell and Maeder Osler.

Tuesday, 16 July 2024, at Clarke’s Bookshop, 199 Long Street, Cape Town. Free entry!

It has been such an honour and joy to work on this stunning memoir with J. M. Coetzee, Dorothy Driver and Nick Mulgrew, and I look forward so much to sharing the book with readers.

I want to thank J. M. Coetzee and the Driver Family for entrusting us with the manuscript. I did not know Jonty myself, but I read his work, and we corresponded occasionally about his New Contrast subscription when I was the business manager and one of the board members of the SALJ. He was always supportive and kind and lovely to engage with. Reading the manuscript he left behind when he passed away last year in May, I knew that I would not be able to do it justice as a publisher without the help and support of Jonty’s last poetry publisher, Nick Mulgrew of uHlanga Press. I cannot thank Nick enough for embarking on this co-publication with me. We have been working together in all kinds of capacities since 2015, but this is the first time that uHlanga Press and Karavan Press are co-publishing a book, and what a special one it is. Beautifully written, tenderly honest, insightful and simply extraordinary, Dayspring is a literary gem.

Read an excerpt here: Johannesburg Review of Books

Join us for the launch on the 16th!

Karina Author, Book, Event

Love Books launch of BAD LUCK PENNY by Amy Heydenrych

Next week, Karavan Press authors and readers are moving into Love Books for two days. We are launching Anna Stroud’s Who Looks Inside on 19 June, and then Amy Heydenrych‘s beautiful Bad Luck Penny the next day, on 20 June. Amy will be in conversation with Gail Schimmel. Please do not forget to RSVP. Sadly, you will have to go home to sleep between the two events, but we hope to see you there for both occasions!

About the book:

In the wake of her beloved grandfather’s death, Lou and her family gather at their coastal family home for a long-awaited family reunion. The windswept and wild surroundings remind Lou of who she was before being a mother, a wife, and a professional failure. They bring back memories of Michael, her toxic first love and, according to the family, her ‘bad luck penny’. A shocking crisis in the country disrupts the funeral arrangements and forces the family together for longer than planned. As secrets rise to the surface, the threads of Lou’s life unravel and she faces a difficult choice – after all, it’s only a bad luck penny if you pick it up.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Love Books launch of WHO LOOKS INSIDE by Anna Stroud

Dear Readers of Joburg, 
The super-talented Anna Stroud is launching her stunning debut novel, Who Looks Inside, at Love Books on 19 June 2024. She will be in conversation with Michael Boyd, the author of The Weight of Shade.
Please join them for this celebration!
Literary love,
Karavan Press

PS Do not forget to RSVP.

About the book:

The news of her mother’s death pulls Hannah back from South Korea to her childhood home in the Karoo where she discovers that she has never escaped her abusive father and passive mother. That, in fact, she has been there all along, baking bread and raising a son whose father might be a local farmer she is having an affair with. Her world unravels as she struggles to separate the life she has built for herself from the one she survived. Unsettling, eerie and evocative, Who Looks Inside explores themes of childhood trauma in a working-class Afrikaans family.

“Poetic, atmospheric and haunting—Who Looks Inside is an intricate and compelling exploration of family trauma, small-town secrets and the decisions that seal our destinies.” — JENNIFER MALEC

Karina Author, Book, Event

Catching the wave with Byron Loker at Salon Hecate

Following the enormous success of last year’s “Surf’s Up” reading by local surfer-authors-poets, Salon Hecate at the Noordhoek Art Point Gallery is returning with another fabulous line-up of surf literature the first Tuesday evening in June. We’ll be launching the re-issue of Byron Loker’s short story collection, New Swell, and getting a teaser taste of his brand-new collection, Heavy Water, forthcoming from Karavan Press. Byron is one of “Nature’s gentlemen”, a surfer who never drops in and shares not only the backline, but the limelight. He asked if others could get on board too, so … check out the entire line-up here:

Catching the wave at Salon Hecate

Date and Time

Please join us at the Noordhoek Art Point Gallery on 4 June, 5.30 for 6. Entrance is free, but PLEASE RSVP by 1 June at the latest. Otherwise we run the risk *gasp* of running out of wine. Small snacks provided.

Got a question about this event or interested in a particular piece you’ve seen at Noordhoek Art Point? Get in touch at info@noordhoekartpoint.co.za or call 0835642493.