Clik here to view.
Book Bites: 8 December 2013
Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales Edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt (Quercus) **** Book nerd It had me at Neil Gaiman, but this short story anthology features other great storytellers who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Head of Zeus Pre-empts World Rights to the Debut Novel of South African...
Alert! The world rights to South African author Miranda Sherry’s forthcoming debut novel, Black Dog Summer, have been snapped up by Laura Palmer, editorial director of the UK publishing house Head of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pippa Green, Zoë Wicomb, Nuruddin Farah and Others Honour Nelson Mandela in...
Several African writers have paid tribute to former South African president Nelson Mandela in The New Yorker following his death last week. Among those who wrote about Madiba for the magazine are Pippa...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fiction Friday: “The Island” by Teju Cole
Teju Cole’s story “The Island” in The New Inquiry is an interpretation of the real events of Nelson Mandela’s incarceration for 27 years on Robben Island, a photograph taken of him in the prison...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Publishers Weekly Reviews A Girl Walks into a Bar by Helena S Paige
Verdict: sticky carrot This erotic interactive novel—the first in a series from Paige, the pseudonym of Helen Moffett, Sarah Lotz, and Paige Nick—allows the reader to decide the course of an eventful,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gordon Cramb Reviews Knowing Mandela by John Carlin
Verdict: critical carrot By six days, Nelson Mandela outlived a white South African politician called Colin Eglin. While the future president was made to hew limestone on Robben Island, the quantity...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Books LIVE Exclusive: David Attwell Gives a Historical View of the Importance...
David Attwell, current head of the English Department at the University of York, and author of several books, including JM Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing, has written a tribute to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Annie Gagiano Reviews Harare North by Brian Chikwava
Verdict: carrot Chikwava’s Harare North (published in the UK by Jonathan Cape, 2009) presents readers with an evocation of conflicted Zimbabwean identities, struggling to come to terms with Mugabean...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Guardian Picks the Best African Fiction of 2013
Alert! The Guardian’s list of Best African Fiction for 2013 includes NoViolet Bulawayo’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted We Need New Names and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Chicago Tribune Heartland...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sunday Read: Simon Garfield’s Love Letter to the Christmas Card
Simon Garfield recently published a book called To the Letter: A Journey Through a Vanishing World, which examines and celebrates the practice of letter writing and looks at some of the the great...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sunday Read: Professor Borges’ Knives
Michael Greenberg reviews Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature, which is a compilation of twenty-five of the great writer’s lectures, interweaving in his essay fascinating details from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Damon Galgut Explores the Life of EM Forster in His Forthcoming Novel, Arctic...
Atlantic Books have released information on Damon Galgut’s new novel, Arctic Summer, which is set to be published in March 2014. The latest offering by the award-winning author will be released locally...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu Comments on the State of Zimbabwean Literature
The Zimbabwean literary culture has been in a “protracted childhood” says Tinashe Mushakavanhu, editor of State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry. In an interview with Stanely Mushava of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fiction Friday: Excerpt from The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma...
JM Coetzee’s English translation of Wilma Stockenström’s Afrikaans novel, Die kremetartekspedisie, will be re-published in April this year by Archipelago Books, a nonprofit press devoted to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sunday Read: James Thurber’s Short Story Which Inspired Ben Stiller’s Latest...
In 1939 The New Yorker published a short story by the beloved humorist and author James Thurber called “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”. The 2,100 word story sketches the boring, mundane life of a man...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teju Cole Included on The Verge 50, a List of “People Who Changed Our Lives”...
Nigerian-American author Teju Cole has been included on The Verge 50, a list naming “the people who changed our lives” in 2013. The Verge compiled the list, showcasing exceptional individuals in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Link Love: New Comic Book Nelson Mandela: Tribute by Clay and Susan Griffith...
Bluewater Productions are publishing a comic book about the life of the late Nelson Mandela, reports Karla Zabludovsky for Newsweek. The 32 page long Nelson Mandela: Tribute tells his story along with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teju Cole’s Every Day is for the Thief is a Book to Look Forward to in 2014
Nigerian-American author Teju Cole received much acclaim for his novel Open City, published in 2012. This year, Every Day is for the Thief, “a wholly original amalgamation of fiction, memory, art, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Akin Adesokan Finds Writers’ Disavowal of Their African Identity a “Strange...
The debate over what exactly makes an “African” writer and whether this identification is at all relevant, has been taken up by Nigerian writer Akin Adesokan, author of Roots in the Sky, in an opinion...
View ArticleClik here to view.
JM Coetzee Outraged by the Suffering of Animals in Gaza Abattoirs, Calls for...
JM Coetzee, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate and patron for the animal protection institute Voiceless, has expressed his horror at the footage emerging from abattoirs in Gaza where cattle are...
View Article