Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, speaking with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episode, Bongani Kona interviews Frankie Murrey about her latest work, A Collection of Gaps.
PEN SA: WRITING IN TROUBLED TIMES – A Conversation with Athol Williams
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Last night at The Book Lounge: UCT Writers Series with Frankie Murrey and Bongani Kona
When introducing Frankie Murrey last night at the first UCT Writers Series event taking place at The Book Lounge, Sindiswa Busuku called Frankie a “worker of the imagination”. It is an apt title for the literary powerhouse that she is. Every time I listen to Frankie speak about her work – the curation of the Open Book Festival and her writing – I am inspired. Her words make me want to return to my own writing. The way she reads and actually sees the world, in books and beyond, is a true gift to the literary community. She was in conversation with the ever-thoughtful, funny and incisive Bongani Kona. Listening to them discuss literature and Frankie’s “distinctive” – as Bongani called it – debut, Everyone Dies, was an extraordinary experience.
Here are only a few snippets of what Frankie shared with the audience:
“I read compulsively. If nothing else is available, I will read the text on a shampoo bottle.”
“It’s amazing to see what is happening in this country moving onto the published page.”
“Everything I know, everything I am is through books, through reading and writing.”
“I’m interested in writing in such a way that anything I write about becomes accessible while still preserving the beauty of language; I’m interested in finding a simplicity that holds.”
“I love microscopes because they allow you to look at something in an intense way.”
Click here to buy Everyone Dies at The Book Lounge: Everyone Dies by Frankie Murrey
In March 2024, Frankie won the HSS Award for Best Emerging Author in the Fiction Category for Everyone Dies.
A HIBISCUS COAST by Nick Mulgrew launched at The Book Lounge
To say that I was moved would be the understatement of the last two years. Our first post-lockdown book launch at THE BOOK LOUNGE again – after more than seven hundred loss-filled days! Fittingly, it was of Nick Mulgrew’s debut novel A Hibiscus Coast, and he was interviewed by Bongani Kona. Nick is as much of a literary institutions in his own right as is The Book Lounge. So is Bongani. Between the three of them – Mervyn (and his Book Lounge team!), Bongani and Nick – they connect most of the local literary community around us in ways that are difficult to capture in a few words. I would just like to say that I do not want to imagine a world without them. They make what I do at Karavan Press possible. They give me hope when little else does. Thank you!
And thank you to all the writers and readers who showed up at The Book Lounge tonight – I cannot tell you what it meant to me to sit among you during this evening of celebration.
Nick, thank you! You are an inspiration.
Karen Jennings at the FLF 2022
Karen Jennings will be at this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival. She is participating in two events: the first [12] LIGHT & SHADE is already sold out, but you can still get tickets for [34] LIT GRIT (click on the image below):
A HIBISCUS COAST by NICK MULGREW to be launched at THE BOOK LOUNGE
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
Bongani Kona interviews Karen Jennings for New Frame
“We don’t need to wait for people from other countries to tell us which African author is worth reading,” she said. “No one would wait for a Zimbabwean writer to decide who is the best Irish writer.”
New Frame
karavanpress.com 