Tune in on 27 January 2021, at 7PM, to listen to Joanne Hichens speak about her memoir, Death and the After Parties.

To find out more: “Life, in a Garden”.
Tune in on 27 January 2021, at 7PM, to listen to Joanne Hichens speak about her memoir, Death and the After Parties.

To find out more: “Life, in a Garden”.
New collection of short stories from Grabouw’s Lester Walbrugh
Walbrugh’s debut anthology is titled Let It Fall Where It Will and was published by Cape Town-based Karavan Press at the beginning of November. The book was officially launched on Saturday 21 November.
Walbrugh grew up and completed his schooling in Grabouw, his home town. He looked back on his childhood in his quiet Western Cape town with much fondness.
“We played in fields, climbed trees and swam in the streams well into our teenage years. However, Grabouw was a small community then and everyone knew everyone, which could be suffocating at times.”
Growing up there, and having not read stories he could relate, to gave him the inspiration to begin writing.
“I like to think that reading indiscriminately has helped my writing in general,” Walbrugh said.
Continue reading: The South African
And here are a few more photos from the launch:






Space limited to 20 poetry lovers! Please book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
karavanpress@outlook.com / 0728683605

It feels like a miracle. We are going to have a socially distanced book launch for Lester Walbrugh’s story collection, Let It Fall Where It Will!
Thank you to the three literary Fairy Godmothers who are making it possible: Marion Smith of Elgin Ridge Wine Estate for providing a safe space for such an event during lockdown; Christy Weyer of Liberty Books for agreeing to sell books at the launch (in the time ‘before’ we were hoping to have the launch at her beautiful bookshop in Grabouw, but it is too small for a safe gathering of this kind); and, Bettina Wyngaard for agreeing to do the interview with Lester. Both authors grew up in Grabouw and it will be wonderful to celebrate Let It Fall Where It Will with them on their home turf.


Earlier this year, Karavan Press authors, Dawn Garisch and Melissa A. Volker participated in the Salonfestival Cape Town.
Here is a link to the brand new Salonfestival magazine of 2020. The Cape Town festival features in it. The magazine is only available in German but the photographs tell their own story of times when we could still gather freely and celebrate these cultural encounters: Salonfestival. Happy memories!

Writer and Karavan Press publisher, Karina M. Szczurek, will be offering a selection of new and second-hand books by Karavan Press authors and a few titles by her late husband, André Brink, as well as her own books for sale at the Alma Café Traders’ Market on Saturday, 15 August 2020, between 10:00AM and 1:00PM. Price range: R20 to R200. Part of the proceeds from the book sale will be donated to The Alma Café.
The Alma Café, 20 Alma Road, Rosebank, Cape Town.
For more info, please see: The Alma Café Traders’ Market, karavanpress.com and karinamagdalena.com.
Life, in a Garden is offering a series of virtual events with writers. Listen to Karen Jennings, author of An Island, who is currently based in Brazil, talk about her latest work of literary fiction. Tune in on Sunday, 16 August, at 10:30AM.


To read more about the SAFTAs Awards see National Film and Video Foundation.
To read Thembi Mtshali-Jones’s remarkable life story, see her Theatre Road: My Story as told to Sindiwe Magona.
12 March 2020: PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE SPREAD OF COVID-19.

Karavan Press author Dawn Garisch will be participating in this year’s Jewish Literary Festival (JLF). The festival is taking place on 15 March 2020 at the Gardens Community Centre in Cape Town, home to the iconic Jacob Gitlin Library, SA Jewish Museum and Cape Town Holocaust Centre.
Dawn’s event will take place at 10am at the venue “ISRAEL ABRAHAMS 2“.
This is the third edition of the bi-annual Jewish Literary Festival, a one-day event for lovers of literature and Jewish life. Between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Sunday, 15 March 2020, readers can engage with more than 70 wordsmiths, poets, journalists, filmmakers and educators over more than 40 sessions. The presenters all have some Jewish connection, are engaged with subjects of Jewish interest or have a way with words and, with multiple sessions running simultaneously throughout the day, the organisers offer genres that cover fiction, sport, food, memoir, politics, journalism, the arts and more – a wide choice to suit all tastes. It is a literary feast of note. Don’t miss it! Tickets sell out quickly, so do not hesitate to book yours here: Quicket.


Karavan Press authors Melissa A. Volker and Dawn Garisch will be participating in this year’s BLOWN AWAY BY BOOKS at the Fish Hoek Library. The festival is taking place between 11 and 14 March 2020.
Writing the Environment: where fact meets fictionNovelists Lynton Burger (She Down There), Melissa A. Volker (Shadow Flicker) and environmentalists Colin Bell (The Last Elephants) and Richard Peirce (Orca: The day the Great White sharks disappeared) talk to Robin Adams of World Wide Fund for Nature about telling stories that need to be written about our world.
Saturday morning, 14 March, 10:00-11:30, Fish Hoek Library.
This Writing Life Tracey Farren asks novelists Dawn Garisch (Breaking Milk), Qarnita Loxton (Being Shelley) and Trevor Sacks (Lucky Packet) where their stories come from. Do they arrive fully formed, or do uncontrollable characters dictate what will happen next? How do they write, and when, and why, and can anyone ever fully explain this writing life?
Saturday afternoon, 14 March, 14:00-15:30, Fish Hoek Library.
