Shari will be in conversation with Nadia Kamies. Can’t wait!
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IN SILENCE MY HEART SPEAKS by Thobeka Yose launched at Woman Zone
In Silence My Heart Speaks by Thobeka Yose – officially: Queen Thobeka – was launched at Woman Zone as part of the Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival yesterday. Thobeka was in conversation with Nancy Richards, who has been a champion of Thobeka’s memoir from the start when she first met this courageous woman and heard her remarkable story.
Yesterday’s launch interview was followed by a deeply moving Q&A during which other women praised Thobeka, her book, and shared their own stories of becoming, resilience and power. It was an honour to be present and to listen. We all went away inspired.
Thank you, Queen Thobeka, for your strength, wisdom and willingness to be vulnerable and to open up spaces for vital conversations. Thank you to Nancy for all the encouragement and support, and for leading the conversation. To Woman Zone – deepest gratitude for championing women’s lives & stories. And to Artscape for hosting. Thank you to all who attended and made this occasion beyond special!
Note Thobeka’s shoes! Definitely the most fabulous launch shoes in Karavan Press book launch history! Fitting for a Queen!
You can listen to the launch conversation here:
Woman Zone Stories – Meet the Author: Thobeka Yose
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
Love Books launch of GOOD HOPE by Nick Clelland
Dear Readers of Joburg,
Good Hope, Nick Clelland‘s debut novel about an alternative-reality independent Western Cape, is venturing outside of the Good Hope Territory for the first time and will be launched at Love Books next Monday, 27 May 2024. Nick will be in conversation with the wonderful Kate Sidley. Hope to see you all there!
About the book:
Lisa Robinson has moved from Durban to Cape Town to be with Grant, the prospective next First Minister of the Good Hope Territory. The GHT is the safest and most prosperous country in the southern hemisphere – at a price. Citizens contract to be tracked by drones, executions are synchronised to the Noon Gun and only those with qualifications are permitted to vote in the Qualified Franchise system. Life here is picture-perfect. The Mother City is pristine. Everyone has a job. Tourism is booming. But this shiny new state has decided that Lisa is a problem, and problems here disappear quickly and quietly …
CROOKED SEEDS by Karen Jennings launched at The Book Lounge
Deidre, the “compelling”, in Hedley Twidle’s words, protagonist of Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings, had her first official outing in her hometown, Cape Town, last night at The Book Lounge. The bookshop was filled with writers and readers who wished Deidre – this broken, fascinating, difficult character – well. “She is horrific,” the author said about her creation, “but I loved writing her.” And she emphasised that no matter how difficult certain aspect of the novel are to read, Crooked Seeds is her love song for South Africa, a country she cares about deeply: “I am in awe of our resilience, and the people who are saving communities, caring for others, despite all the failures of the officials.”
“She is a word surgeon,” Mervyn said of Karen in the introduction to the evening. She is indeed. And Dr Karen Jennings is also a hermit by her own admission, finding “all my writing a never-ending hell. At some point in my life,” she said, “I must have signed a contract with the devil. I asked to be a writer, and I was granted the wish, but I did not read the small print, which said: you will be a writer, but you will be in agony from now on.” Agony and all, she hasn’t lost her humour. And her exquisite writing is a precious gift to our literary world.
Thank you, Karen, for writing another incisive, stunning novel and for being the wonderful person you are. Thank you to Hedley and The Book Lounge team for all the incredible support. To all who were there: mountains of gratitude!
Dear Readers,
May Deidre make you feel, and think about our own fragility and brokenness. She is impossible to ignore …
GOOD HOPE by Nick Clelland launched at 6 Spin Street
What an evening! The crowds gathered at 6 Spin Street to celebrate the launch of Good Hope by Nick Clelland last night.
Nick was in conversation with the wonderful Refilwe Moloto, who asked all the pertinent and intriguing questions and made us laugh.
Good Hope was written during lockdown. ‘It is my banana bread,’ Nick said. To bring the setting – an alternative, speculative present-day Cape Town that is the capital of a new independent country, the Good Hope Territory – he had to do some serious world-building. The result was a fictional Wikipedia entry longer than the one real South Africa has at present. But only excerpts from it feature in the novel. The rest is a fast-paced narrative about a handful of characters trying to make themselves at home in this strange, new – and eerie – world. ‘It is Cape Town, but it ain’t,’ Nick said.
It is a riveting read about what happens when ‘liberty is on fire’. Nick told us that he wanted ‘to poke the bear’ and examine the concept of freedom, even more so now when we are approaching the next elections. Good Hope does not give answers to difficult questions about franchise, privacy and agency, but is not afraid to ask them. ‘If you read this book and do not feel awkward at some stage, you are probably a psychopath,’ he said. ‘I wanted to shake things up, to provoke a conversation. Politics can and should be fun.’
Many questions from the audience followed, including one about what people in the Good Hope Territory do for fun … The usual, was the answer. But I doubt that they have such fabulous book launches 🙂
Thank you to Nick and Refilwe for the enticing conversation. To 6 Spin Street for hosting! To all who attended! And to our amazing Book Lounge for EVERYTHING!
Enjoy the thought-provoking read!
karavanpress.com 