Karina Festival

Karavan Press Literary Festival 2025

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.

EVENT 1 09:30-10:15  LIFE AND LAUGHTER

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.

EVENT 2 10:30-11:15  FINDING ONESELF

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

EVENT 3 12:00-12:45  SECOND CHANCES

“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.

EVENT 4 13:00-13:45 

ANDRÉ BRINK MEMORIAL LECTURE

“Influences and Legacies” – PENNY HAW, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award

FREE ENTRY TO ALL EVENTS AT SASNEV!

~ ~ ~

WORKSHOP 15:30-17:30

6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town

(Please note change of venue for the workshop!)

OPENING THE DOOR TO YOUR STORY 

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

WORKSHOP FEE R300

Books will be available for sale at great prices throughout the festival!

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at the Woordfees

Anna Stroud, Nick Clelland and Beatrice Willoughby will be participating in this year’s Woordfees:

TUESDAY, 1 October, 11:30, SU Museum Annex

A Tale of Two Cities

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

Met ’n bietjie hulp van my vriende

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

Karina Author, Book, Event

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 …

Karina Author, Book, Event

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!

Karina Author, Book, Event

The launch of GOOD HOPE by Nick Clelland

One month before our elections, on 29 April 2024, we are launching Good Hope. Nick Clelland‘s daring debut novel takes us on an imaginative journey to the heart of an unsettling alternative reality where the Western Cape is an independent country. The Good Hope Territory is entering its next elections cycle which could potentially unseat the governing party and see a new First Minister voted into power. On the surface of things, this is a well-functioning state with a booming economy. But at what cost? And what are the people vying for power prepared to sweep under the Mother City’s table cloth to achieve their goals?

Please join us for the launch of this fast-paced, intriguing novel that will make you see the present in a new light.

Nick will be in conversation with Refilwe Moloto.

Please note the venue: 6 Spin Street 

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

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: GOOD HOPE by Nick Clelland

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.