Traditionally celebrated on the last day of October or in early November, the Day of the Dead is an occasion on which family and friends gather to pay their respects to those who have passed on. This year, we are inviting literary friends and family to celebrate the day with Christy Weyer, Consuelo Roland and Alex Latimer at Liberty Books on 4 November 2025.
Consuelo (The Good Cemetery Guide) and Alex (Love Stories for Ghosts) have both written movingly about the dead, remembering and honouring them as well as celebrating their lives and thus encouraging us readers to celebrate ours, here and beyond.
Day of the Dead themed dressing up is optional (but to be strongly considered). All are welcome to attend this free event! Hope to see you there!
The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences hosted its annual HSS Awards gala last night and we are thrilled to announce that four Karavan Press titles were recognised at the Awards. Congratulations to Anna Stroud, Alex Latimer, Shari Daya and Nick Clelland on your wonderful achievements!
SHORTLISTED TITLES
Land | Lines, Shari Daya in the Best Poetry sub-category.
Good Hope, Nick Clelland in the Best Fiction Novel sub-category.
WINNING TITLES
Who Looks Inside, Anna Stroud in the Best Fiction Emerging Author sub-category.
Love Stories for Ghosts, Alex Latimer in the Best Fiction Short Stories sub-category.
Congratulations to all nominated and winning authors!
Thank you to all who make the HSS Awards possible!
We are delighted to announce that the fourth KARAVAN PRESS LITERARY FESTIVAL is going to take place on Saturday, 12 April 2025, at the wonderful South African Centre for the Netherlands and Flanders – SASNEV– 4 Central Square, Pinelands, Cape Town, 7405. Thank you to Eureka Barnard and the Staff of SASNEV for hosting us!
As part of the festival, Penny Haw, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award, will deliver the André Brink Memorial Lecture – 6 February 2025 was the 10th anniversary of André’s death, and on 29 May 2025, he would have turned 90. We will remember and celebrate together!
Also as part of the festival, Qarnita Loxton and Amy Heydenrych are offering a Creative Writing Workshop. For all details, please see below.
EVENT 1 09:30-10:15 LIFE AND LAUGHTER
Diane Awerbuck, Lisa Tredoux and Gail Gilbride speak to Nick Clelland about how to use humour in literature across the genres to address important themes that are not necessarily always funny.
EVENT 2 10:30-11:15 FINDING ONESELF
Sarah Isaacs, Anna Stroud, Kharys Ateh Laue and Lester Walbrugh talk to John Maytham about their young characters’ search for who they are and how they want to be in the world when the world is unwilling to cooperate.
COFFEE / TEA BREAK
EVENT 3 12:00-12:45 SECOND CHANCES
“Sometimes the only thing you can do to change is to leave.” (Qarnita Loxton)
Amy Heydenrych, Stephen Symons & Alex Latimer talk to Karina M. Szczurek about their characters’ opportunities for change.
EVENT 4 13:00-13:45
ANDRÉ BRINK MEMORIAL LECTURE
“Influences and Legacies” – PENNY HAW, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award
FREE ENTRY TO ALL EVENTS AT SASNEV!
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WORKSHOP 15:30-17:30
6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town
(Please note change of venue for the workshop!)
OPENING THE DOOR TO YOUR STORY
Join authors and collaborators – QARNITA LOXTON and AMY HEYDENRYCH – for an intimate, nurturing creative writing workshop. Get to the heart of your story, uncover the theme of your writing project and work through any potential blocks to your creative writing process in a quiet, encouraging setting.
Snacks and drinks will be served.
The workshop is open to writers of all levels, including beginners. Only 10 spots available. Please book early to avoid disappointment.
We are all looking forward to the nextKingsmead Book Fair, taking place at Kingsmead College on Saturday, 25 May 2024. Hope to see you there!
09:30-10:30 | Mackenzie 2
Dawn Garisch (What Remains) confirms, with Diane Awerbuck (Inside your body there are flowers), Frankie Murrey (Everyone Dies: A Series), Alex Latimer (Love Stories for Ghosts), and Barbara Ludman (Moving On), that brevity is the soul of wit. And drama. And romance.
09:30-10:30 | Mackenzie 3
Fiona Snyckers (The Hidden) asks Owen Salmon (A Weakness to Die For) and Andrew Brown (The Bitterness of Olives) to unpack the male gaze in storytelling.
12:30 – 13:30 | Music Centre Georgina Geddes asks Alistair Mackay (The Child), Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster), Shubnum Khan (The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil) and Amy Heydenrych (Bad Luck Penny) what it is that makes stories ‘literary’.
12:30 – 13:30 | Chapel
Diane Awerbuck (Inside your body there are flowers) answers the call of nature with Adam Welz (The End of Eden), and Nick Norman (The Woodpecker Mystery: The Inevitability of the Improbable).
12:30 – 13:30 | Mornington
Kate Sidley (Katie Gayle – Julia Bird Mysteries) asks Saaleha Bhamjee (Home Scar), Anna Stroud (Who Looks Inside) and Janine Jellars (When the Filter Fades) what it takes to really own your writing space as a woman.
14:30 – 15:30 | Mornington Amy Heydenrych (Chasing Marian, Bad Luck Penny) sees if she can find a reason why the characters created by Ashling McCarthy (Down at Jika Jika Tavern), Marina Auer (Double Edged), Femi Kayode (Gaslight) and Natalie Conyer (Present Tense) need to worry about their welfare.
16:00 – 17:00 | Lange Hall Police reservist Andrew Brown (The Bitterness of Olives) guides Daniel Steyn (The Thabo Bester Story), Naledi Shange (Killer Cop – The Rosemary Ndlovu Story), Karl Kemp (Why We Kill: Mob Justice and the New Vigilantism in South Africa) and Nechama Brodie(Domestic Terror) into the minds of murderers both famous and anonymous.
16:00 – 17:00 | Music Centre
Alex Latimer (Love Stories for Ghosts) discovers if the future is fantastic or frightening with Mandla Moyo (The Fallen Angel), Sarah M Naidoo (A Remedy for Death), Alistair Mackay (The Child) and Babette Gallard (Future Imperfect).
Alex Latimer launched his brilliant short story collection, Love Stories for Ghosts, at The Book Lounge last night. Sam Wilson asked the questions, and there was no doubt how much the stories had moved him. The two authors spoke about the inspirations, facts and fictions behind the collection, and asked us to see the world in a different light, making us laugh in the process. We all face and fear death, but in his stories, Alex shows us that there are ways of thinking about death and grief that are astounding and life-affirming.
Thank you to Alex and Sam, to Guy Neveling whose stunning photographs illustrate the stories, to The Book Lounge, and to all humans and ghosts who attended!
Alex says: “If you’re in Cape Town on the 4th of April, come along to the launch of my first ever short story collection – Love Stories for Ghosts. (I normally make books for children, but this one isn’t.) I’ll be chatting to Sam Wilson and there’ll be wine for free and books for sale. I’m really very proud of this collection – I’ve been writing these stories over the past eight years and they’re fun and weird and sincere and often Death shows up with a cup of rooibos tea. Plus the stories are accompanied by some truly incredible photographs by Guy Neveling. Hope to see you there!”
Love Stories for Ghosts will make you think about the mystery of death, and it will make you delight in the beauty of life. Can’t wait to listen to Alex and Sam talk about this remarkable collection and its ghosts!
A collection of hopeful stories about living, dying and falling in love, with photographs by Guy Neveling.
An evil man is reincarnated as a terrible smell and over time falls in love with a woman. A stranger arrives at the door of a heavenly house, but unlike everyone else there, she will only live once. A person dies and goes to a place where all living things go – a menagerie of animals roaming an endless meadow – and he finds love in familiar faces. A mother and a son reunite in a heaven that is also a hell – depending on how you see it. Two people die on the moon and live undead through eons, moving through the phases of love while watching the lights on Earth flicker out.
Publication date: 8 March 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7764581-9-6
“Excitingly inventive writing that will touch you long after reading – sometimes with a cold and bony finger, and sometimes with the gentle breath of a lovesick ghost.”
– Henrietta Rose-Innes
“Unusually humorous and without sentimentality, these stories illuminate the extraordinarily strange places – in this world as well as others – that life and death will take us.”
– Nick Mulgrew
ALEX LATIMER is an award-winning picture book author based in Cape Town. He has also written three novels. Extinction, published here for the first time, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Love Stories for Ghosts is his debut collection.
GUY NEVELING has picked up numerous photography awards at international advertising festivals, but now dedicates his time primarily to personal work, continually nurturing his love for imagery. He lives in Simon’s Town.
ALEX LATIMER is an award-winning picture book author based in Cape Town. He has also written three novels. ‘Extinction’, published for the first time in Love Stories for Ghosts, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Love Stories for Ghosts is his debut collection.
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