by Amy on May 22nd, 2012
A brand new solo exhibition by Anton Kannemeyer opens at the Stevenson in Johannesburg on 31 May.
The exhibition, entitled Painting and Prints for Doctors and Dentists, was inspired by his doctor’s suggestion that he pay him for consults in drawings rather than with money. The drawings had to be appropriate for the doctor to hang in his house, which means that this series deviates from Kannemeyer’s characteristically confrontational art to focus on portraiture and landscapes.
Kannemeyer, co-founder of Bitterkomix, and has published several books of his own comic and illustrative art, including Alphabet of Democracy and Pappa in Afrika. The exhibition continues until 29 June.
Stevenson is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Anton Kannemeyer.
The humorous origins of this show lie in a suggestion by Kannemeyer’s doctor that the artist no longer pay him in cash but give him art in exchange for his services. But, whenever Kannemeyer put forward a work in payment, the doctor had to ‘run it by his wife’ who invariably thought the piece was inappropriate for their home. When Kannemeyer’s dentist made the same suggestion, the artist decided it was time for an exhibition of works that ‘doctors and dentists’ might actually want to hang in their houses.
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Image courtesy Stevenson
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by Amy on May 22nd, 2012
In an interview with LitNet’s Janet van Eeden, James Kilgore says that his fiction teases out the contradictions between political rhetoric and the reality of what politicians and activists are actually doing.
His latest novel, Freedom Never Rests, focuses on post-apartheid South Africa. The interview is preceded by Van Eeden’s review of the book:
James, even though you are an American by birth, you spent eleven years in Africa in exile from your own country in a way. Are your novels inspired by Africa rather than America because you were here during a very volatile period in this continent’s history? If not, can you explain why Africa is such a strong source of inspiration and story to you?
Actually I spent eighteen years in Africa – seven in Zimbabwe and eleven in South Africa. So I guess it’s not surprising that Africa has inspired my work. But there are two other things as well. Firstly, the period of time I was in southern Africa was incredibly dynamic – the transition from white minority rule to some form of democracy. Secondly, in both countries I drew incredible inspiration from the ways people organised themselves and sacrificed for freedom, particularly how culture and tradition were integrated into a sort of class struggle model. Yet at the same time, that freedom never did rest, it was never a static thing, a singular destination. Rather freedom became more and more complicated and elusive once political power was gained. This process of hope and disillusionment was both triumph and tragedy, the essential ingredients of a novel.
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by Amy on May 22nd, 2012
Zinaid Meeran, winner of the 2009 EU Literary Award for Saracen at the Gates is back with his second offering from Jacana, Tanuki Ichiban:
Tanuki Ichiban is a daring and extraordinary tale from novelist Zinaid Meeran. A comic masterpiece, Meeran’s genre-busting novel is accomplished and provocative. Geronimo Chanboom and Darius Coochoomber III set out to impress girls at underground dinner parties and strive to smuggle and cook every rare critter in the Cites endangered species roster. Super NGO-ho nymphet, Corsicana, nursing a crush on retired circus orangutan Lahnee-O, spearheads the campaign to have the great apes declared human. Just who is the tanuki ichiban?
Next day at work, Corsicana fancied she felt hungover. She had forgotten her third kidney, as her hardass boss at the Institute for the Study of Vice, Prof. Sofie Jasat, called the one point five litre plastic bottle of tapwater Corsicana lugged around with her at all times. No matter that there were fifteen taps in the building to which Corsicana had access, she never got enough water unless the third kidney was at hand. Corsicana eyed Sofie, desk phone tucked between shoulder and ear, sms-ing at pace, screaming for coffee, typing with one hand and bunting a filing cabinet shut with her hip. Corsicana, in secret, called her the Office Octopus. It was a fearful sight – her future – Corsicana realised with a jolt. She hoped she could preserve her looks as her monomaniac mentor had. It was a thing of wonder that Sofie, who drank coffee like it was water, ate only Nik-Naks and Peeky Nana’s, or Bounty candy bars if she fancied something with fruit in it (syrup-drenched coconut was fruit after all), got hopelessly sozzled at Friday post-work drinks and never slept more than four hours a night, showed her fifty years only through two stripes of silver along her ink black bangs, like Susan Sontag or a highly cerebral polecat.
About the author
Zinaid Meeran, photographer and filmmaker, has an MA in Critical Studies and an MFA in Film from UCLA as well as an honours in Politics from UCT. For Meeran, film and literature are ways to investigate identity as fluid and fragmented rather than the concrete and fixed phenomenon the powers would claim it to be. His previous novel, Saracen at the Gates, won the EU Literary Award in 2009.
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by Amy on May 18th, 2012
The Mail & Guardian recently published an edited extract from Ashraf Kagee’s debut novel, Khalil’s Journey, which won him the 2012 European Union Literary Award.
In Khalil’s Journey, Kagee evokes the richly-textured beauty of everyday life of the last century’s Cape Malay and Indian cultures, and deftly captures the lyrical resonance of voices long forgotten by history:
The southeaster was howling madly as it usually did in the afternoons when the sun did its disappearing trick behind the immense wall of Table Mountain. Not only howling, mind you, but blasting itself around with a frenzied urgency, almost as if it was making one last mad dash around the peninsula before the day closed for business and night-time set in. Usually a friendly wind, the southeaster had a mean streak that occasionally showed itself. Quite unprovoked, it would sometimes maliciously slam a door shut on a child’s hand, unkindly close a car boot on an innocent forehead that was foolish enough to be in the way and on one occasion, according to the Cape Argus, form a hapless cyclist to veer uncontrollably into an oncoming truck.
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by Amy on May 17th, 2012
Following the success of the inaugural Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award in 2011, Jacana Media is motivated to further strengthen South Africa’s voice and creative spirit.
To ensure that all South African poets have the opportunity to give a voice to their vision, the deadline for submissions for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award 2012 has been extended to 31 May 2012.
The prize, for poetry in ALL 11 South African languages, will be awarded later this year. All selected works will be published in an annual anthology. Selected poets will be invited to appear at a South African poetry festival and a cash prize of R10 000 will be divided among the selected poets.
Rules
- Entrants are encouraged to write in their mother tongue.
- Poems may not have been published in book form before, but may have been published in journals or magazines.
- Entries are limited to 3 poems per poet.
- Entrants must be South African citizens permanently resident in South Africa.
- Entries must include 6 copies of each poem entered plus a soft copy in a suitable word-processing package. No handwritten entries will be considered.
- Entries must include a separate one-page biography of the author, including the name of their poem and current contact details.
- The award is judged blind and therefore any poems that include the author’s name will be disqualified.
- By entering this competition, entrants give permission for the publication of their poem for no payment if selected in the annual anthology. If the entry is not in English, they give permission to translate the poem into English for publication together with the original language poem.
Submissions
Submit your entries by 31 May 2012 in a clearly marked envelope indicating the award and the language of entry. The entry form must be included and is available to download at www.jacana.co.za. Submissions not accompanied by an entry form will not be accepted!
Send to: Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award, PO Box 291784, Melville 2109
Or deliver by hand to: Jacana Media, 10 Orange Street, Sunnyside, Auckland Park, Johannesburg 2092
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by Amy on May 16th, 2012
From the Tiger Brands case, through the Walmart saga to the recent auction scandal, the Competitions Tribunal has seldom been far from the news in the last few years.
Join ex-Head of the Competition Tribunal David Lewis for an inside account of the way this relatively new body has dealt with the anti-competitive practices of South African Big Business, through their examination of mergers, abuse of dominance (or monopolies) and cartels, and enlivened with case studies of each.
Lewis will launch his book, Thieves at the Table: Enforcing the Competition Act, at The Book Lounge on Wednesday 23 May at 6PM. See you there!
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by Amy on May 16th, 2012
Doing business with low-income communities – which academics and practitioners have christened ‘the base of the pyramid’ (BoP) – now includes a focus on creating sustainable markets with the potential to realise future profit – simply ‘milking’ a market for the next quarter’s profits is seen as short-sighted. The status quo is shifting, and the rules of both commercial and social engagement with middle- and lower-end markets in developing economies are transforming. There is keen interest from both local and global businesses and institutions to be involved in these markets. And they care about the practical detail of doing it effectively, and ethically. This new view accords that doing business in a healthier economy benefits firms by lowering transaction costs and the long-term cost of capital.
In South Africa, around 60% of the population is unserved or underserved by current business (and many other providers of support and services). That’s a significant new market, and in the South African context, doing business in this market can achieve a great deal more than simply finding new customers. Regardless of global trends or government pressures, accessing these markets is challenging. Often, customers who survive on minimal incomes seek and will value different market offerings from those traditional customers have purchased. They have unique needs and identities requiring innovative, non-traditional business models and approaches.
New Markets, New Mindsets showcases pioneering businesses and their BoP champions, as well as their experiments, successes, failures and best practices in creating new AND sustainable markets in previously underserved communities.
The book includes top tips for those wishing to tap into these communities in ethical and effective ways, interviews with over 40 role players, and case studies including Nestlé, Danone, Massmart/Walmart, Nedbank, Blue Label Technologies and Capitec, among others.
About the authors
Dr Tashmia Ismail is a fellow at UNU Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, and a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) where she teaches innovation and BoP strategy. Ismail heads the GIBS BoP Hub, which offers a collaborative multi-stakeholder platform for firms interested in developing and executing BoP strategies. She is interested in how innovative and sustainable business models can be shaped for firms in developing markets. Currently, her research is directed at understanding internal innovation management and the external networks firms must engage with to ensure success in low income contexts.
Dr Nicola Kleyn is a senior lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science where she lectures and researches in the fields of marketing, branding and reputation management. She is both passionate and curious about how organisations can best manage the dynamic tensions that arise when individuals and companies seek to create win-win-win solutions that concurrently enable people, profit and planet. She was instrumental in initiating a stream of BoP focused research and teaching at GIBS and plays an active role in the BoP Hub at GIBS.
Gwen Ansell is a veteran writer, editor and writing trainer. She has written several textbooks, including Introduction to Journalism, which is a set text for the national curriculum and trains scholars, journalists and other communicators in writing skills. As a researcher, Ansell is the author of the South African cultural history Soweto Blues, and has done extensive value-chain and innovation research on the South African music industry.
Book details
- New Markets, New Mindsets: Creating wealth with South Africa’s low-income communities through partnership and innovation by Tashmia Ismail, Nicola Kleyn, Gwen Ansell
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EAN: 9781920292034
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by Amy on May 15th, 2012
Jacana Media is thrilled to announce that McIntosh Polela has been shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for his book My Father, My Monster.
“McIntosh Polela’s brave and honest account of his struggles to make something of himself under terrible conditions, and his heartbreaking look at his difficult relationship with his father, made sure that the voice of many unheard South Africans was acknowledged by the judges.” – Tymon Smith, Sunday Times
An overwhelmed Polela said he “felt embarrassed crying in front of such a big audience because, as spokeman for the Hawks, I’m supposed to be stiff and snobbish and shouldn’t cry.”
– Sunday Times, May 13 2012
A triumph of the human spirit
Police spokesperson and former TV journalist McIntosh Polela has been on our screens for many years. But behind his seemingly unfazed demeanour a troubled past haunts him. His parents disappeared when he was a little boy, leaving him and his sister Zinhle to suffer years of brutal abuse.
When the truth of his parents’ disappearance is revealed, the teenage McIntosh makes a fully functioning gun from found objects which he keeps for the day when he finds his father. He knows that he must come face to face with the man who robbed him of his childhood.
McIntosh has to confront his father about his mother’s brutal death. How can he possibly forgive, when his father remains a remorseless, brutal and heartless monster?
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by Amy on May 9th, 2012
Shoe Shop is not just a book, it is part of a larger project, The Shoe Shop Project, which is currently consuming the city of Johannesburg. Percy Zvomuya spoke to Marie-Hélène Gutberlet, curator of the Shoe Shop Festival and co-editor of the corresponding publication, about the reflection on human movement and migration that underlies the project.
German curator and scholar Marie-Hélène Gutberlet writes in the recently published book Shoe Shop that one of her first impressions of Johannesburg was that walking was not something white people did. One day, while walking in Parktown North, a white man in a van stopped and “asked me where I was headed.Apparently, I was not supposed to be walking on the street, even in a ‘safe’ suburb such as this one.”
Shoe Shop is a concept linked to a project, Migration and Media, which started in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. After Frankfurt, the project moved to Bamako, Mali, after which it tracked down to Johannesburg.
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Photo courtesy Artslink.co.za
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by Amy on May 9th, 2012
Nozuko Poni of Unbranded Truth spoke to Thando Mgqolozana, author of Hear Me Alone, about the controversies his writing often raises:
Nozuko Poni: Who is Thando Mgqolozana?
Thandi Mgqolozana: I’d like to think of myself as an ordinary, big hearted underachieving rural bumpkin who enjoys reading books and pretends to be writing stuff that other people may read, which they don’t.
NP: What is your earliest memory of literature?
TM: My maternal uncle was a teacher, and I say ‘was’ because I don’t know what he is now; possibly nothing, like my dad. So this guy was a teacher and read a lot. His big books, his name appended on the inside cover of all, were all over the place in our village home. You might imagine that I’m about to say he inspired me, he didn’t; I didn’t like him. But that’s my earliest memory of literature. At school I remember the title of a certain poem and its author. I think the musical way we began reciting the poem is what moved me; we said, ‘Children’s Rain Song, by Musaemura Bonas Zimunya…’ then I’d go blank. But then came the year, much later in school, when I read Troubled Waters by Joseph Diescho. This was in the final year of school. I read this book several times, for pleasure, and I have never stopped reading since then.
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