“Words don’t help with grief, but presence does,” said Alex Latimer, author of the short story “Death and rooibos”, included in his collection Love stories for ghosts. In the story, Death takes a young boy’s mother away and remains behind in the child’s life well into his adulthood – a strange, friendly, comforting presence having a cup of rooibos whenever he visits. Alex was one of the well over 100 authors speaking at this year’s Open Book Festival, which took place last weekend between 6 and 8 September at the Homecoming Centre in Cape Town. The session he was part of, “Love and other toxins”, also featured Shubnum Khan and Sven Axelrad, and was expertly chaired by Dela Gwala. I have loved all three of these authors for a long time, but collectively they stole my heart during that afternoon …

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