Karina Author, Book, Festival

Kingsmead Book Fair 2023

Another highly successful Kingsmead Book Fair (KBF) is behind us. And we had so much literary fun! Joanne Hichens, Lester Walbrugh and I were on the same flight going up to Johannesburg. We all spoke at the festival – Lester and I about Elton Baatjies, and Joanne and I about Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

We ‘met’ Joy Watson and Lethokuhle Msimang at the airport on the bookshelves of Exclusive Books.

What is the best way of passing flight time? Reading, of course.

We joined Joy on the morning of the book fair and dived into the busy, amazing programme of this year’s KBF that had something to offer for EVERYONE.

Authors met up in the Green Room for refreshments and a bit of rest between the fascinating sessions.

Exclusive Books pop-up shop at the KBF. Two of our titles sold out at the book fair!

It was wonderful to meet Jarred Thompson and Lerato Moletsane in person – both contributed to Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

Thank you to the organisers of the book fair, to everyone who came to listen to us, to all who bought books and made the KBF 2023 such a joyous book fair. Already counting the days until KBF 2024!

Happy reading!

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at FLF 2023

Two Karavan Press authors are speaking about their work at this year’s edition of the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF): Lester Walbrugh and Lethokuhle Msimang.

Click on the images below to book your ticket for the individual sessions.

You can buy their books in advance of the festival via the FLF website (and Exclusive Books):

Two other Karavan Press authors – Joy Watson and Nancy Richards – are chairing a few sessions:

We look forward to seeing you in Franschhoek!

Karina Author, Book, Review

Joy Watson reviews ELTON BAATJIES by Lester Walbrugh

Lester Walbrugh’s ‘Elton Baatjies’ shows us the treacherous terrain of stepping into who we are

Elton Baatjies is a tour de force. It is a carefully crafted book and its temporal sense of time and location are brought to life beautifully.

Elton Baatjies is based on the story of Norman Simons who stalked and killed boys on the Cape Flats between 1986 and 1995. Dubbed “the station strangler”, Simons is thought to have been responsible for sodomising and strangling 22 boys. The evidence at the time could only link him to the death of one, 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen. Simons was a schoolteacher, which made his arrest particularly shocking.   

Elton Baatjies is set in the Elgin Valley, about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. The story opens with Elton taking up a job as an English teacher at a local school. The community is in uproar because six boys have been raped, murdered and dumped down the side of the mountain …

Continue reading: Daily Maverick

Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

Cape Flats Book Festival 2022

Please join us for the Cape Flats Book Festival 2022!

Karavan Press authors on the 2022 CFBF programme:

Saturday, 15 October

12:35-13:15 In Conversation (Adults): Sara-JayneMakwala King (Mad Bad Love) & JOY WATSON (The Other Me)

15:20-16:00 In Conversation (Adults): Colleen Higgs (my mother, my madness) & NANCY RICHARDS (The Skipper’s Daughter) moderated by Leslie Swartz (How I Lost My Mother)

Sunday, 16 October

10:55-11:35 In Conversation (Adults): Karina Szczurek (Disruption) & LESTER WALBRUGH (Elton Baaitjies)

11:50-12:30 Against the Odds (Adults): JOANNE HICHENS (Death & the After Parties) & CATHY PARK KELLY (Boiling a Frog Slowly)

We look forward to seeing you there!

Karina Author, Book, Interview

JRB: Read an excerpt from Lester Walbrugh’s debut novel and an interview with Joy Watson

The latest issue of the Johannesburg Review of Books features an excerpt from Lester Walbrugh’s debut novel Elton Baatjies and an interview with Joy Watson.

‘A raincloud sucks all the blue from the sky’—Read an excerpt from Lester Walbrugh’s forthcoming debut novel, Elton Baatjies

‘I think that it is important for every woman to claim the “nasty” in her’—Anna Stroud interviews Joy Watson on her debut novel, The Other Me

Karina Author, Book, Festival

15 – 17 September: Karavan Press authors at Blown Away by Books

THURSDAY 15 SEPTEMBER

14.00 – 15.00 
So you want to write? How to start – how to continue: three writers give insight into their writing journeys and the genres they have explored

Lester Walbrugh – Elton Baatjies & Let It Fall Where It Will
Shameez Patel – The Last Feather 
Penny Haw – The Wilderness Between Us

Moderator: SarahBelle Selig

FRIDAY 16 SEPTEMBER

9.30 – 11.30 
Writing workshop with Cathy Park Kelly and Máire Fisher (Library Hall)

14.00 – 15.00 
What we know and what we learn – about ourselves, our families, our history

Sara-Jayne Makwala King – Mad Bad Love
Erika Bornman – Mission of Malice
Cathy Park Kelly – Boiling a Frog Slowly

Moderator: Karina Szczurek

16.00 – 17.00 
The stories we choose to tell – memoir, biography and the fictions between

Colleen Higgs – My Mother My Madness
Nancy Richards – The Skipper’s Daughter
Hedi Lampert – The Trouble With My Aunt

Moderator: Cathy Park Kelly

SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER

16.00 – 17.00 
Personal, social, political – stories that create the fabric of our country

Sindiwe Magona – Theatre Road
In Our Own Words: Nurses on the Front Line
Nick Dall and Matthew Blackman – Spoilt Ballots

Moderator: Tracey Farren

For the full programme, click here:

BLOWN AWAY BY BOOKS