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

A panya route in Rosebank

One of the creatives Kim Gurney interviewed for her latest book, Panya Routes: Independent art space in Africa (Motto Books, 2022), Nana Oforiatta Ayim, the founder and director of the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge in Accra, said that she “wanted to set this place up so that others like me who wanted to write and express something could come and have a home, a place to think collectively, create, push boundaries.”

Earlier today, Kim was in discussion about Panya Routes with Joy Watson – both belong to the Rosebank Writes group, recently founded by Kim and other writers who live and work in and/or are affiliated with the suburb of Rosebank, Cape Town (we have a sister organisation in Johannesburg). The event was hosted by another member, Shireen Mall, in her beautiful lounge that was transformed into an independent art space for the day. Writers, readers and creatives gathered to celebrate the publication of Panya Routes (which Karavan Press and Protea Distribution have the honour of distributing in South Africa along independent panya routes of their own) and listen to Kim and Joy discuss the book, its origins and consequences.

It was a morning of illumination, and I cannot thank Kim, Joy, Shireen and all who attended, enough for inspiring us all to search for our individual panya routes which allow us to be creative in spaces where, in the words of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, “the progress of any one person is not dependent on the downfall of another” (quoted in Panya Routes).

Karina Festival

Cape Flats Book Festival is back with a bang!

Taryn Lock, Nancy Richards, Lester Walbrugh, Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Qarnita Loxton and Karina Szczurek at the Cape Flats Book Festival 2022

“When you live a life of reading, you live like a cat, you experience nine lives,” Premier Alan Winde said at the opening ceremony of the second Cape Flats Book Festival, and added: “There’s nothing like a good book, nothing.” Totally agreed!

And when you live a life of reading, you get to hang out with the coolest of people – readers and writers!

This weekend, readers and writers gathered at the West End Primary School in Mitchells Plain to celebrate the wealth and wonder of literature, and it was an honour to participate. According to the organisers, the festival is “an act of hope, an opportunity to dream beyond our circumstances.” Indeed. And every minute of it was literary delight.

Great vibes, great sessions, laughter and wisdom, lots of connecting and reconnecting and simple sharing – of experience, ideas and the love of books.

Karavan Press authors participating: Joy Watson, Nancy Richards, Lester Walbrugh, Cathy Park Kelly and Joanne Hichens.

Joy Watson, Sara-Jayne Makwala King and Karina Szczurek

The second day of the festival was a little bit quieter, but smaller audience create more intimate interactions and often strong bonds are forged not only between authors and their fans, but also between the authors themselves. Writing is mostly a solitary and often lonely occupation, and it is simply wonderful to encounter others in the same boat and feel slightly less alone in the world.

And when you are lucky, you get to hug Oaky 🙂

Thank you to everyone who made this fantastic event possible!

Karavan Press family – Lester Walbrugh, Thobeka Yose (to be published next year), Karina Szczurek (holding a freshly baked bread, a gift from Lester) and Cathy Park Kelly

Hope to see everyone at the next Cape Flats Book Festival!