Karina Book

TIGER: Karavan Stories 2023

Tiger is the result of the inaugural Karavan Stories Workshop & Anthology project. All the contributors gathered for a writing workshop at the end of April. Together, we discussed the intricacies of the short story, went through several writing exercises, decided on a theme for our anthology and began exploring ideas for individual stories. In the following months, we kept in touch, drafting and redrafting, until the book you are holding in your hands took shape.
The theme was inspired by a news story that dominated the headlines early this year: an eight-year-old tigress named Sheba escaped from a private farm in Gauteng and in the following days attacked a man and killed a few domestic animals before she was shot by officials. As it was impossible to safely contain and capture the wild feline in the area where she was eventually found, the decision was taken to euthanise her. Sheba’s death renewed debates around the injustice and cruelty inflicted on exotic animals held in captivity.
Touched by Sheba’s story, we chose her kind to inspire Tiger. Contributors could work with the theme in any way they wished, either reimagine it, see it as a springboard or a metaphor, or let their imaginations run wild. The stories which emerged interpret ‘tiger’ as the unknown, untamed or foreign in our lives – what we fear and what we long for, sometimes simultaneously. The authors play with phrases like ‘tiger mom’ and ‘when tigers smoked’ – the evocative Korean equivalent of ‘once upon a time’ – as well as wrestle with ideas, states and emotions which refuse to be captured in words. In their stories, they retrieve familiar fables and fairy tales to interpret the complexities of the present and speculate about the future …

Contributors: Lucienne Argent, ChatGPT, Gail Gilbride, Kerry Hammerton, Anna Hug, Desiree-Anne Martin, Karen Martin, Michelle A. Meyer, Warren Jeremy Rourke, Anita Shapiro, Caitlin Spring, Alexandra Wood

ISBN: 978-1-7764726-0-4

Publication date: December 2023

I would like to thank all contributing authors for embarking on this journey with Karavan Press: like the creature that inspired them, your stories purr, claw and pounce. A big thank you to Monique Cleghorn for the exquisite design of our anthology.
To our readers: enjoy!
Karina M. Szczurek
Cape Town, 2023

Karina Author, Book, Distribution

Karavan Press is the local distribution partner for FLUID: The Freedom to Be

THE BOOK
In these twenty short stories of inquiry, transgression, osmosis and transformation,
we embrace the fluid nature of humanity.

THE CONTRIBUTORS
The anthology’s contributors are largely established South African authors who
have a track record in the publishing industry, as well as exciting emerging writers. The writers include Peter-Adrian Altini, Diane Awerbuck, K. L. Bohle, Anna Hug, Kingsley Khobotlo, Yuwinn Kraukamp, Alex Latimer, Keith Oliver Lewis, Lerato Mahlangu, Shari Maluleke, David Medalie, Mabel Mnensa, Lerato Moletsane, Nadine Moonsamy, Shanice Ndlovu, Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Robyn Perros, Bridget Pitt, Lorraine Sithole, Jarred Thompson and Andrew Robert Wilson.

THE EDITORS
JOANNE HICHENS has to date edited seven highly praised anthologies of South African short stories, including Bad Company, Bloody Satisfied, Adults Only and Die Laughing. She has published several crime novels, including Divine Justice and Sweet Paradise, and a memoir, Death and the After Parties.

KARINA M. SZCZUREK is the (co)editor of, among others, Touch: Stories of Contact, Encounters with André Brink, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa and Hair: Weaving and Unpicking Stories of Identity. She is also the author of Invisible Others and The Fifth Mrs Brink.

FOREWORD: Lorraine Sithole

ISBN/EAN: 978-0-9946805-7-0
PUBLICATION DATE: May 2023
PUBLISHER: Tattoo Press

TATTOO PRESS is an independent small publisher, specializing in contemporary South African short fiction.

READ THE WINNING STORY: “Blue Boy Lagoon” by Keith Oliver Lewis

If you are a bookseller, please contact BOOKSITE to order copies of FLUID: The Freedom to Be. If you are a reader, please ask your local bookshop to order the book for you via Booksite.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press to publish new editions of Nick Mulgrew’s short story collections, Stations (2016) and The First Law of Sadness (2017)

STATIONS

Everything was familiar,
but not enough to be comforting.

Fourteen rich and entangled stories set on the cosmopolitan Southern African coast and its hinterland.

Journey on broken-family vacations, or into canefields where clouds of birds fill the sky. Join a postman on his jaunt into the weird world of the ultra rich, or descend into a haunting colonial purgatory.

Meet people from all walks of life as they try to navigate them, stuck between a fragmented present and an unspeakable past.

WINNER of the 2016 THOMAS PRINGLE PRIZE

SHORTLISTED for the 2015 WHITE REVIEW PRIZE

“One never gets bored in the company of Nick Mulgrew.”

– Jean-Paul Beaumier, Nuit Blanche

Publisher: This edition Karavan Press

(First published in Cape Town by David Philip Publishers in 2016)

Publication date: May 2023

ISBN: 978-0-6397-7839-6

THE FIRST LAW OF SADNESS

Mostly I hope there is no heaven,
just so you’ll never see how I’m doing.

Audacious, imaginative tales of killer eagles and paintball guns, tattoo removal and animal sanctuaries, pornographers and biltong makers; of a South Africa concurrently too strange and too familiar for comfort.

With trademark poetic and spiritual flair, these stories combine comedy and grief, spectacle, sex, and nostalgia.

WINNER of the 2018 NADINE GORDIMER AWARD

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017

“Full of the possible becoming probable, of the mundane made massive, of leviathans glimpsed out of the corner of an eye.”

– Russell Grant, Mail & Guardian

“An accomplished writer [who] handles both the horror and banality of experience.”

– Diane Awerbuck, Sunday Times

Publisher: This edition Karavan Press

(First published in Cape Town by David Philip Publishers in 2017)

Publication date: May 2023

ISBN: 978-0-6397-7840-2

NICK MULGREW was born in Durban in 1990. He writes novels, short fiction and poetry.

Among his accolades are the 2016 Thomas Pringle Prize, the 2018 Nadine Gordimer Award, and a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship. His debut novel, A Hibiscus Coast, won the 2022 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award.

Since 2014 he has directed uHlanga, an acclaimed poetry press. He currently lives in Scotland, where he studies at the University of Dundee.

Both covers were designed by Michael Tymbios.
Karina Author, Book, Literary Award, Literary Awards

Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh shortlisted at the HSS Awards in the Best Fiction Short-Stories subcategory

Congratulations to Lester – we are so proud! – all the other shortlisted authors, and the winner of the subcategory: Nthikeng Mohlele!

Congratulations also to the winner of the Best Fiction Edited Volume subcategory: Hauntings edited by Niq Mhlongo. The anthology includes short stories by Lester Walbrugh and Joanne Hichens!

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh

‘Hi,’ he said. He had perfect teeth.
We clinked glasses, his martini with my local craft gin cocktail.
‘Let it fall where it will,’ he said.

The die is cast in Lester Walbrugh’s debut collection of stories. Set in the Western
Cape and in Japan, Let It Fall Where It Will showcases the stunning versatility of the
author. Ranging from witty to poignant, occasionally employing magic realism to
great effect, the stories capture a vibrant chorus of voices and fearlessly explore
contemporary topics of identity and sexuality while illuminating South Africa’s
troubled past and the shadows it throws on our present.

The rooms are aglow, another morning with portals of light. Its clarity is blinding.

ISBN: 978-1-990931-91-8

Publication date: 2 November 2020

“A thrilling debut … gritty and intimate. Walbrugh’s prose, whether in the Cape
vernacular or standard, illuminates a diverse world with subtlety and wit.”
— Zoë Wicomb

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LESTER WALBRUGH is from Grabouw in the Western Cape. His acclaimed short stories have been published in, among others, the anthologies of Short.Sharp.Stories and Short Story Day Africa, New Contrast and, most recently, Hair: Weaving & Unpicking Stories of Identity. He has lived in the UK and Japan and is currently back in his hometown, working on his first novel.

Author photograph by Francois F. Swanepoel.