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talking books
With this year’s Cape Town Book Fair cancelled, the Franschhoek Literary Festival is the season’s choice par excellence for booklovers who want to meet and mingle with 90 authors and publishers at 70 events. “ p e o p l e j u s t l o v e to hear writers talking,” says FLF organiser Jenny Hobbs, accounting for the popularity of this event that sees big literary names exchanging opinions with local and emerging writers on themes as diverse as the healing power of books to how cellphones are being used to hook new readers. Jenny says that the festival offers something for everyone: “It’s light-hearted, serious and everything in between. It’s a joy to walk down the street and hear laughter erupting from the halls.” This year the literary luminaries include London-based South African author Justin Cartwright, who will be arriving at the same time as the release of his new book, Other People’s Money, a bold and timely exploration of the financial crisis. Literary novelist Barbara Trapido will be attending, after turning her back on apartheid South Africa and emigrating to England in 1963. She revisited South Africa in her imagination in Frankie & Stankie, her fictionalised memoir about growing up as a first-generation white immigrant in South Africa through the late 1940s and 1950s. Also, the FLF is presenting bestselling author Colin Cotterill, acclaimed for his gently humorous mysteries set in Laos in the 1970s, starring the National (and only) Coroner, Dr Siri Paiboun. The festival will also be introducing Jamaican poet and novelist Kei Miller of Glasgow University. Politics is always a hotly debated topic and visitors can expect more vociferous debates at the talk 1994 And All That with Peter Harris (Birth) and Jonny Steinberg (Little Liberia), chaired by John Maytham; Press Freedom chaired by Justice Malala with, among others,
Durban satirical blogger Azad Essa (Zuma’s Bastard) who is coming from Doha where he now works for TV news channel Al Jazeera; and Outcasts with Carmel Rickard (Thank You, Judge Mostert), Max du Preez (Pale Native) and Jonny Steinberg again, chaired by Jacques Pauw (Little Ice Cream Boy). Central to many discussions and readings is the time of apartheid, and Nelson Mandela. This is the first time that a mother and daughter duo will be hosted at the festival. Barbara Trapido’s daughter, Anna, the author of Hunger for Freedom, will be part of the discussion on Writing Madiba, alongside other authors who have produced books about the former South African president – these include Mike Nicol (Mandela: the Authorised Portrait) and Tim Couzens (Conversations With Myself), all chaired by Max du Preez, who has been commissioned to write The Rough Guide to Nelson Mandela. Education is another perennial issue, and the University of the Free State’s vice-chancellor Jonathan Jansen will be debating the vexed question of how to fix our schools. There will also be plenty of criminal activity at the festival. Mike Nicol is an old crime-novel pro (Black Heart¸ the third instalment in his Revenge Trilogy, hits shelves in May) and will also be appearing in the events What is Krimi? with Jassy Mackenzie (Stolen Lives), Sarah Lotz (Tooth and Nailed) and Sifiso Mzobe (Young Blood); and Skop, Skiet en Donder, which should deliver some action-packed dialogue with Tony Park (Silent Predator), Australia’s answer to Wilbur Smith, and Sifiso Mzobe again, chaired Radio 702’s Jenny Crwys-Williams.
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MAGAZ I NE
AUTUMN
Colin Cotterill
Kei Miller
13 to 15 May, all day, Franschhoek Literary Festival, different venues (booking facilities in the Town Hall). For a full programme visit www.flf.co.za.
2011
2/21/11 5:24:17 PM