I love going to literary festivals, whether it is as a writer or a reader. I love interacting with readers when I am attending as an author, and vice versa. Festivals are always such inspiring, informative and fun gatherings. They often take place in beautiful towns or cities that are worth seeing in their own right. And so it is with the Montagu Book Festival/Boekefees.
I first visited Montagu a few months ago when the local book club asked me to talk to them about The Fifth Mrs Brink. I received such a warm welcome and I met so many remarkable people that I knew I would have to come back for the festival, no matter in what capacity. What I could not have anticipated was that I would be there as a publisher!
Karavan Press is up and running, or rather travelling, at a dizzying speed. First book launch, first interviews and first reviews behind us; it was time for the first literary festival, and we could not have done better than with the enthusiasm of the Montagu Book Festival organisers and readers. Great attendance, generosity of spirit, beautiful venues and the town itself: a Litte Karoo delight. Did I mention that the audiences are welcomed to the afternoon and evening events with a glass of local muscadel? Other terrific food and wine has been had – the pizzas at Burgundy Gherkin had the most amazing toppings, and the BluVines Restaurant was a delicious highlight of the visit (and a sponsor of the festival!). I loved their Mimosa wines, especially the bubbly and the red blends. A few bottles made it back home and will be enjoyed with good memories in front of evening fires. The balmy winter weather was a reprieve from Cape Town’s wintery storms. And the Milky Way presented itself in its full glory above the gorgeous landscape, luckily deprived of artificial light at night.
The programme was fantastic. Something for every literary taste. I attended four sessions apart from the one at which I interviewed Karavan Press’s author, Melissa A. Volker, about her life and her writing, specifically her novels, A Fractured Land and Shadow Flicker. I had been dreaming of talking to Melissa about her writing at a literary event for years now, and it made me so happy to finally experience it, not only as a huge fan of her beautiful novels, but also as their proud publisher.
Poets: “Julle is die lig van die wêreld”
The other sessions were Finuala Dowling reading from her latest poetry volume, Pretend You Do Not Know Me, a ‘best of’ collection which also includes stunning new work; followed by John Maytham performing “Being Human”, a poetry script compiled by Finuala; Wilhelm Verwoerd talking about “that last name”; and Duncan Brown encouraging us to “rewild” our lives. While John was still in the audience, listening to Finuala, I was reaching for a tissue to deal with the emotions her poetry was evoking in me and glanced at him wiping away his own tears. We were both incredibly moved. And then, John made us laugh and cry with his exquisite reading of the poetry Finuala prepared for him. There was one particular poem that made us all crave chocolate cake so much that some delicious sinning was happily indulged in at lunchtime.
Wilhelm made me think a lot about my troubled memories of my paternal grandfather. And Duncan’s ideas made me feel very proud of my exuberantly wild garden.
An obligatory swim in the delightfully hot springs of Montagu (I am an Aquarius after all) was the perfect finish to another great visit. Can’t wait for the next occasion to visit Montagu!
There aren’t really many among the cast of characters in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb spy thriller series that you would want as a friend. On the whole, they are a bunch of losers. It’s almost always certain that they’ll either let themselves or their colleagues down. Yet, you can’t help but follow their (mis)fortunes with feverish anticipation.
Opening an Ingrid Winterbach novel fills me with excitement every single time. She is one of my favourite contemporary Afrikaans writers and I am immensely grateful that her work is available in English.
The sixth Jackson Lamb thriller, Joe Country by Mick Herron, is hitting our bookshelves. The Drop is a novella in the series that only a few months ago introduced a new character into the cast of Regent Park’s drop-outs whiling away the time as “slow horses” in Slough House, where Jackson Lamb rules supreme. Whereas most of them arrive on Lamb’s doorstep after a major screw up in the field, the new addition ends up in the dubious care of the obnoxious Cold War spy through a set of weird coincidences. His fate is sealed after Solomon Dortmund, an old spook, observes an envelope changing hands in a way that stirs all the retired spy’s hard-wired intuitions into action.
“Now, there are storytellers, and there are Storytellers”, the narrator of Water No Get Enemy, one of Fred Khumalo’s stories collected in Talk of the Town, tells us about Guz-Magesh, a larger than life character who features in two of the pieces: “His well of tales is bottomless.” He has that in common with his creator. Khumalo is the author of four novels. His short stories have been considered for prestigious awards and featured in several magazines and anthologies. Talk of the Town is his debut collection.
A seminal step in the right direction
South African-born Louisa Treger used to work as a classical violinist before she turned to literature, first gaining a PhD in English at University College London and then trying her hand at creative writing. Her academic research focused on early 20th-century women writing and eventually resulted in her first novel, The Lodger, which told the story of Dorothy Richardson, a British author and journalist who was one of the earliest modernist novelists and, in her heyday, was considered among the greats of the era, but was subsequently neglected by readers and critics alike.
The relationship between domestic workers and their employers in South Africa has a complex and deeply troubled history. Yet, it lies at the heart of many local homes, whichever side of this relationship you find yourself on: as job creator or taker. The connection between the two defines everyday life for millions of South Africans. For foreigners, it is often unfathomable. Thus, I found Ena Jansen’s study of the subject, Like Family: Domestic Workers in South African History and Literature, extremely illuminating.
Zikr is the debut poetry collection of the writer and photographer Saaleha Idrees Bamjee. Once opened, it is not a book you will want to close again easily, unless for a moment of silence to contemplate the beauty of what you have just read before you return eagerly for more.
Karina Magdalena 