The 20th edition of the South African Literary Awards is set to take place on 11 November 2025 at the Roodepoort Theatre and Museum and we are delighted to announce that Nick Clelland’s Good Hope has been shortlisted for the Novel Award. Congratulations, Nick and all other shortlisted authors!
Read the official press release: SALA Announces the 2025 Shortlisted Nominees
The Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists have been announced and we are delighted that they feature five Karavan Press titles. Congratulations to all longlisted authors!
Thank you to all who make these awards possible!
Mountains of gratitude to Karavan Press authors on the lists:
FICTION
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (co-published with Holland House Books)
Who Looks Inside by Anna Stroud
Good Hope by Nick Clelland
NON-FICTION
In Silence My Heart Speaks by Thobeka Yose
Dayspring by C. J. Driver (co-published with uHlanga Press)
For all details, see: Sunday Times Literary Awards
Mannequin Pictures has optioned the screen rights to the political thriller Good Hope, the debut novel of South African author, political advisor and communications specialist, Nick Clelland, for adaptation into a series. The deal was brokered by literary agent Catrina Wessels on behalf of Karavan Press.
Mannequin, a Johannesburg-based, award-winning production company specialising in South African content for an international audience, plans to produce a high-end series based on Clelland’s gripping, dystopian novel set in an alternative present-day Cape Town.
“It’s a fictional projection of what a breakaway Cape Republic might be like to live in. […] In it, Clelland imagines a totalitarian and surveillance state that projects the perfect Cape society with frightening revelations of what keeps it going,” writes Ferial Haffajee, veteran journalist and newspaper editor, on Daily Maverick, describing it as a must-read novel that she read in one sitting.
“There’s a rich world of story which we would like to see live at its fullest on screen,” says Warwick Eccles, development executive at Mannequin, about Good Hope.
The adaptation will be developed by Mannequin Pictures as part of its growing slate of prestige projects aimed at both local and international audiences.
About the book
THE WESTERN CAPE IS NOW AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY. SUCCESSFUL, SAFE, MURDEROUS.
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.
‘A riveting read and a scary glimpse into what happens when liberty is traded for order. Unputdownable.’ — GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS
Publication date: 29 April 2024
ISBN: 978-1-0672224-1-3
About the author
NICK CLELLAND is a political animal. He was elected to the Durban Metropolitan Council in 1996 at the age of twenty-four, and three years later as a Member of Parliament. Though quickly tired of elected politics, he has made a career of it all the same. He has worked as a political advisor, consultant and coach with mayors, ministers, premiers and prime ministers around the world, and was the brains behind Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’ behaviour change strategy. A keen yet mediocre cyclist, Nick lives in Cape Town.
For rights queries, contact: Catrina Wessels
Please join us for the following BOOK TALKS hosted by the FynArts Festival, taking place between 6 and 16 June 2025 in Hermanus.
The literary festival season continues and we are delighted to announce that the following Karavan Press authors will be participating in the Kingsmead Book Fair this year:
Meet the Freckolions and the Spots who are bitterly arguing over Face’s vast landscape. Then one day an alien craft descends on Face and sends the Freckolions and Spots into panic! SA actress Lisa Trudoux introduces her first charming and quirky children’s book Dot To Dot which teaches kids the invaluable lessons of self-love and kindness towards others in the most enchanting way.
Sewela Langeni (Making Friends with Feelings) provides a safe space for Jeffrey Rakabe (Led by Shepherds) and Thobeka Yose (In Silence My Heart Speaks) to chat about transferring pain to the page.
Amy Heydenrych (Chasing Marian) examines the creation of the powerful women at the centre of the works of Zukiswa Wanner (Love Marry Kill), Michelle Kekana (The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women) and Qarnita Loxton (What’s Wrong with June?).
Penny Haw (Follow Me To Africa: A Novel), Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (The Creation of Half-Broken People) and Louisa Treger (The Paris Muse) discuss facets of historical fiction – beyond the period in which it’s set – that really matter with Michael Boyd (Weight of Shade).
Merle Levin (World According to Merle: Memoir of a Deliciously Daring Granny), Costa Ayiotis (Matriarchs, Meze and the Evil Eye: A Memoir) and Glenn Orsmond (Crash and Burn: A CEO’s Crazy Adventures in the SA Airline Industry) tell Karina Szczurek (Karavan Press) about their weird uncles and the strange lady from the office.
Peter-Adrian Altini (Salt Water Pool Boy) and Charl-Pierre Naudé (The Equality of Shadows) discuss style and complexity with Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster).
Khaya Dlanga (Life is Like That Sometimes) and Gavin Evans (Son of a Preacher Man) tell Anna Stroud (Who Looks Inside) about what they have learned while writing about themselves.
Onke Mazibuko (Canary) follows Nick Clelland (Good Hope), Siya Khumalo (The Queer Book of Revelation) and Sam Wilson (The First Murder on Mars) into the detailed, fresh worlds of their books.
Queen bees Karina Szczurek (Karavan Press), Melinda Ferguson (Melinda Ferguson Books) and Zukiswa Wanner (Paivapo Publishing) underline the importance of curating stories from a feminine perspective with Sewela Langeni (Book Circle Capital).
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!
Land | Lines, Shari Daya in the Best Poetry sub-category.
Good Hope, Nick Clelland in the Best Fiction Novel sub-category.
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.
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.
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
“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.
“Influences and Legacies” – PENNY HAW, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award
~ ~ ~
6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town
(Please note change of venue for the workshop!)
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.
To book your spot for the workshop, please contact Karina: karavanpressfestival@outlook.com
Books will be available for sale at great prices throughout the festival!
Please join Nick Clelland for the Durban launch of his Good Hope. Nick will be in conversation with Greg Ardé. Wordsworth Books Ocean Mall is hosting on Thursday, 10 October. Not to be missed!
Anna Stroud, Nick Clelland and Beatrice Willoughby will be participating in this year’s Woordfees:
TUESDAY, 1 October, 11:30, SU Museum Annex
The Johannesburg writer Anna Stroud’s first novel, Who Looks Inside, is about family trauma and small town secrets, and stretches from South Korea to the Karoo, and finally comes to an end in Johannesburg. Nick Clelland’s novel Good Hope is set in a dystopian future where the Western Cape is an independent country. Those in power will sweep anything under the rug to maintain the illusion of a well-functioning state and booming economy. Publisher Jaco Adriaanse facilitates this meeting of North and South.
SATURDAY, 5 October, 18:00, EasyEquities Book Tent
Poets often feel obliged to write about love, but perhaps it is time to wax lyrical about the often more reliable and long-lasting love between friends instead. Invited poets bring two verses each about friendship. Is friendship indeed one soul in two bodies, or simply the one soul that will be there when your world falls apart? Bring your best friend and discover fresh insights into what makes your bond so special.
With Loftus Marais, Jolyn Phillips, André le Roux, Jaco Barnard-Naudé, Lynthia Julius, Danie Marais and Beatrice Willoughby.
Full programme: WOORDFEES 2024
Two new South African novels explore the ghosts of our past – and future
How much can we learn from alternative histories – and futures? That question was top of mind when I interviewed authors Karen Jennings and Nick Clelland about their new novels set in a counterfactual Cape Town.
Continue reading:
karavanpress.com 