Archive for January, 2012
by Amy on Jan 31st, 2012
Andrew Duminy considers himself a “interested amateur” when it comes to maps and cartography. He told The North Coast Courier that while doing research for his Master’s thesis on the history of the Eastern Cape frontier, he became aware that there were few books on marine and land surveying easily understandable to the layman.
So, Duminy wrote Mapping South Africa for “interested amateurs” such as himself, avoiding technical and academic jargon:
Many books written about cartography are often hard to understand and approach the subject from an expert’s view commonly including technical and academic jargon.
However, Ballito resident and Professor Emeritus Andrew Duminy’s new book Mapping South Africa: A Historical Survey of South African Maps and Charts seeks to tell the story behind the maps in order to explain the changes that took place as far as accuracy and detail are concerned.
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by Amy on Jan 30th, 2012
EU Literary Award-winning author Kopano Matlwa spoke to Brenda Nyakudya of Afropolitan about her novels, Coconut and Spilt Milk, and her “light bulb” moment.
Matlwa said that if there was such a “light bulb” moment, it must have been when she seriously started thinking about sending the manuscript for Coconut to publishers. She says the story was about to “eat her up inside” if it wasn’t told:
When did you discover your passion for writing?
I’d always read a lot from a very young age, and writing was almost a natural extension of that for me. I never knew it was anything special. I thought everyone wrote! It was so normal, so necessary, so it was quite a surprise when I got a little older and realised that there may be something there.
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Scribd.com book preview:
Spilt Milk
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by Amy on Jan 27th, 2012
The Witness‘ Stephen Coan recently spoke to Andrew Duminy, author of Mapping South Africa: A Historical Survey of South African Maps and Charts, about his long-held fascination with maps. Duminy says that, what sets him apart from a cartographer – someone interested in “who drew the map” – is his primary interest in the “story behind the map”:
“Maps are a way of looking at history,” says Andrew Duminy. “Paging through this book you are paging through South Africa’s history.”
Those pages belong to Mapping South Africa — A Historical Survey of South African Maps and Charts authored by Duminy, professor emeritus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, biographer of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick and author of several studies and books on the Cape Frontier and KwaZulu-Natal.
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by Amy on Jan 26th, 2012
Terry Westby-Nunn, author of The Sea of Wise Insects, is set to appear at the Goethe-Institut this Valentine’s Day, 14th of February, where she will be joined by fellow writers James Ngcobo and Michael Gardiner to discuss “Love, Lust and Literature”.
The talk will coincide with the launch of the New South African Voices series, a new sequence of literary talks and readings hosted by the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg. The talks will pair an established South African author with a new literary voice whose works are linked through a similar theme. The events are scheduled to take place every other month on Tuesdays.
Don’t miss it!
Event Details
- Date: Tuesday, 14 February 2012
- Time: 7:00 PM
- Venue: Goethe-Institut,
119 Jan Smuts Ave,
Johannesburg | Map
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by Amy on Jan 25th, 2012
The launch of Richard de Nooy‘s second novel, The Big Stick, heralded the start of The Book Lounge‘s literary programme for 2012, and promised another year of vibrant and engaging literary discussion. Proprietor, Mervyn Sloman, wished the full house that had gathered a happy new year.
De Nooy, a South African author resident in Amsterdam, wrote this second novel in his loosely interwoven trilogy, about the challenges faced by a homosexual youth who – after his conservative family decide they cannot “bend him straight” – makes the transition from Zeerust to Amsterdam.
The author was joined at the podium by the award-winning writer, Lauren Beukes.
In her inimitable style, Beukes reflected on the standard assumptions a reader makes and quizzed him directly on his sexual orientation. De Nooy, comfortable with the line of enquiry, straightened things out for the audience, saying that, though he is not gay, he has gay friends who read and verified the authenticity of the text.
De Nooy then spoke about writing and humour, voicing his frustration with the difficulty of translating jokes that are difficult to express in another language. Beukes highlighted de Nooy’s walk tweets, which offer a dark combination of brilliant wit and exceptional poetry:
De Nooy said he would suffer from sensory overload if he lived and walked in Cape Town. “Holland is so grey. Here, the colours, the beauty…I’d use too many adjectives!”
During the question and answer session with the audience, de Nooy reflected on the in-your-face sexuality of the narrative, and the ways in which this explicitness has been received. “In Amsterdam, sexuality is much more out there. You can’t pass a shop window without seeing a dildo for sale. Not one of the Dutch reviewers remarked on the sexuality in The Big Stick I guess you could say, the Dutch really get the cock out there. Maybe I’ve been tainted?”
He closed the evening by paying tribute to his editor, Helen Moffett, and award-winning book designer, Joey Hi-Fi.
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Liesl Jobson tweeted from the launch using #livebooks:
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Facebook gallery
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by Amy on Jan 24th, 2012
South Africa’s favourite cartoonist, Zapiro, was recently interviewed by Leadership magazine’s Robbie Stammers. In the interview, Zapiro discusses growing up in Rondebosch, giving up architecture and going overseas to study cartooning, and meeting Asterix artist (Albert) Uderzo in Paris. Zapiro also speaks about his daily routine, revealing that he takes his news “intravenously”, usually through the radio:
You are an old Cape Town/Rondebosch boy, not so?
I grew up in Newlands initially, on Paradise Road. I loved the old Newlands area, and my hangouts were Kirstenbosch and Newlands Forest.
I went to school at Rondebosch Prep, where I had my first cartoons published. I had a fantastic teacher called Alan Kenyon. He was my Standard 3 (Grade 5) teacher and it was in 1969, so the era was very much the kind of ‘60s counterculture and bucking authority. Here was a teacher who was bucking the trend of conservatively dressed, conservatively minded government school teachers. He managed to get kids to do what they were most talented at, and he realised that drawing and writing were things that I could do well.
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by Amy on Jan 19th, 2012
In the following interview with LitNet’s Janet van Eeden, McIntosh Polela notes that, although writing and speaking about his past has helped to heal some of the wounds, it has also “made it all very fresh”.
In his memoir My Father, My Monster, Polela recounts the horrific story of his mother’s death at the hands of his father:
McIntosh, ever since we sat next to each other on a plane, flying to Sithengi’s Film Market in Cape Town as we were both recipients of a bursary from SASWA to pitch our films there, you’ve spoken about the story you wanted to write about your past. I was moved then, and when I read the rough draft of your novel I was moved even more. It’s beautifully polished and published now, and your gruelling story is out there for the world to read. Has this changed the way you feel about life now? Are you more settled in the present now that you’ve put the past to rest?
I thought that writing my story was going to help me put the past behind me. But it made it all very fresh. It’s almost as if it happened just the previous day. But at the same time I found that writing my story gave me some release. It heals me having to talk about it so often to so many people since the book came out.
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by Amy on Jan 19th, 2012
Given that Ndola air traffic control had seen the plane flying overhead and had granted the pilot permission to land, why did the airport manager close down the airport? Why did Lord Alport, the British High Commissioner in Salisbury (now Harare), who was at the airport, insist that the Secretary-General must have decided ‘to go elsewhere’? Why did it take until four hours after daybreak to start a search, even though local residents, policemen and soldiers reported seeing a great flash of light in the sky shortly after midnight? Why was the missing aircraft not found for a full fifteen hours, even though it was just eight miles away from the airport where it had been expected to land? What about the second plane that had been seen to follow the Secretary-General’s aircraft? Why did the survivor refer to an explosion before the crash? Why did Hammarskjöld have no burns, when the other victims were so badly charred? How did he escape the intense blaze, which destroyed 75 to 80 per cent of the fuselage?
Susan Williams has written a shocking exposé of the true story behind the death of the celebrated UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Hammarskjöld’s death. His death and that of his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961 is one of the great mysteries of the twentieth century, and one with huge political resonance.
The Rhodesian government conducted an official inquiry into Hammarskjöld’s death. But as this book will show, it was a massive cover-up that suppressed and dismissed a mass of crucial evidence, especially that of African eyewitnesses. A subsequent UN inquiry was unable to rule out foul play – but had no access to the evidence to show how and why. Now, for the first time, this story can be told. Who Killed Hammarskjold? follows the author on her intriguing and often frightening journey of research to Zambia, South Africa, the USA, Sweden, Norway, Britain, France and Belgium, where she unearthed a mass of new and hitherto secret documentary and photographic evidence.
“Lively and well written.” — Sunday Times
“Part detective, part archivist, part journalist, Williams schmoozed spies, befriended diplomats and mercenaries and won the trust of Hammarskjöld’s still grieving relatives and UN colleagues to get her tale. She unwinds each thread of the narrative with infinite patience, leading us carefully down the torturous paths of Cold War intrigue.” — Spectator
About the author
Susan Williams has published widely on Africa, decolonisation and the global power shifts of the twentieth century, receiving widespread acclaim for Colour Bar (Penguin, 2006), her book on the founding president of Botswana.
Preview the book:
by Amy on Jan 17th, 2012
Jacana Media is delighted to invite you to two launches for Richard de Nooy‘s brand new novel, The Big Stick.
The first launch takes place on 24 January at The Book Lounge in Cape Town where de Nooy will be in conversation with Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City. This will be followed by a launch on 31 January at Melville’s Love Books where de Nooy will be in conversation with Ndumiso Ngcobo. Don’t miss the chance to catch Richard de Nooy in South Africa!
Event Details: The Book Lounge
- Date: Tuesday, 24 January 2012
- Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
- Venue: The Book Lounge,
71 Roeland Street,
Cape Town | Map
- Guest Speaker: Lauren Beukes
- RSVP: booklounge@gmail.com, 021 462 2425
Event Details: Love Books
- Date: Tuesday, 31 January 2012
- Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
- Venue: Love Books
53 Rustenburg Road,
Corner 9th Street
Melville | Map
- Guest Speaker: Ndumiso Ngcobo
- RSVP: matthew@jacana.co.za, 011 628 3200
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by Amy on Jan 16th, 2012
Jacana is proud to announce the launch of The Blue Book, an in-depth history of cricket in the Western Cape:
This book provides the first comprehensive and complete history of Western Province cricket and the Cape Cobras in the 121 years from 1890 to 2011. It goes beyond any similar sports history in South Africa to date, to reveal the rich history of cricket in a region with the longest tradition of playing in the country and the continent.
Based on decades of painstaking research, it overturns old, exclusive ‘official’ accounts of the past and introduces us to a wealth of new material about players, clubs and matches that were previously ‘off field’.
With its 20 000 cricketers, part-owned Cape Cobras franchise and the famous 123-year-old Sahara Park Newlands Stadium, the Western Province Cricket Association has inherited the oldest tradition of cricket in South Africa.
About the Authors
André Odendaal is Chief Executive of the Western Province Cricket Association and Honorary Professor in History and Heritage Studies at the University of the Western Cape.
Krish Reddy has painstakingly recovered much of the lost statistical records of black and non-racial cricket in Natal and South Africa. He is the author of The Other Side: A miscellany of black cricket in Natal, and co-author of Blacks in Whites: A century of cricket struggles in KwaZulu-Natal. The UK-based Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians chose him as their Statistician of the Year in 2007.
Andrew Samson is a statistician with a particular interest in cricket. He has contributed to the Mutual & Federal SA Cricket Annual and Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack since 1994. He was official statistician for the ICC World Cup in 2003, ICC World T20 2007, ICC World Cup Qualifier 2009 and ICC Champions Trophy 2009.
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