What a year, and how fast it seemed to whizz by!
Writers on the move
Our authors traveled far and wide in 2023 and participated in lots of different literary festivals, events and book fairs. We traveled to Morocco for a Women Writers in Africa festival (Barbara Adair and Ashti Juggath). Lots of authors traveled in South Africa to the Kingsmead Book Fair, (Anne Schlebusch, Ashti Juggath, Barbara Adair, Zaheera Asvat Jina, Janet van Eeden) The Franschhoek Literary Festival (Anne Schlebusch, Tracey Hawthorne and Khadija Heeger), Cape Town from Durban (Janet van Eeden) the Gauteng Book Festival (Lynn Joffe, Barbara Adair, Zaheera Jina Asvat, and Nedine Moonsamy), the Central Book Fair in Bloemfontein (Anne Schlebusch) and to the Gothenburg Book Fair in Sweden (Lynn Joffe). The Cape Flats Book Festival – (Khadija Heeger, Fiona Snyckers and Anne Schlebusch). I’m sure I have left some things out.
What we published in 2023
We brought out these Modjaji Books titles in 2023: Bloomer by Anne Schlebusch, Flipped by Tracey Hawthorne and Tears of the Weaver by Zaheera Jina Asvat.
All of these titles were well received, the authors were invited to literary festivals and other events, and the books were reviewed widely. Bloomer found an international agent, Chandler Crawford, (also the agent of The Gospel According to Wanda by Lynn Joffe).
We hope to have lots more news in the coming months about other rights sales.
Hands-On Books titles for 2023: Cut to the Chase: Scriptwriting for Beginners by Janet van Eeden and three poetry collections: Alone in the House by Michael Wessels, My Mother the Seal by Elizabeth Trew and Messenger by Barbara Fairhead (out still in December).
What’s coming up in 2024
We’ve been working on lots of other books that are coming out early in 2024, these are the first three
Through a Dragonfly Eye Jenny Hobbs’s memoir (Hands-On Books)
Home Scar is a debut novel from S.E. Bhamjee (Modjaji Books).
A Work of Repair by Thomas Cousins (Pulani Press)
The movie Snake based on Tracey Farren’s novel will be released in 2024. Meg Rickards of Boondoggle Films directed the movie. Watch out for the movie tie-in edition. We first published Snake in 2011.
We’re excited to bring out the English translation of Innie Shadows by Olivia M. Coetzee, which we published in Kaaps in 2019. Olivia did the English translation with a PEN Afrikaans grant as the House of Anansi Press in Canada bought World rights from us. We’re just going to be doing the South African edition of the English edition, and it will be called In the Shadows here.
Bieke van Aggelen sold audio rights for Dreaming in Colour to Recorded Books, it’s up on Audible for pre-order – narrated by Uvile herself. Interlink Books has published the North American edition
Look out for a collection of short stories by Barbara Ludman, titled: Moving On. A new novel by Tiah Beautement, a non-fiction title by Joanne Bloch, provisionally called Unseen, interviews with partially sighted South Africans. A narrative non-fiction title by Andries du Toit is provisionally called A Blow to the Head.
Two new imprints
In 2024 we’re starting two new imprints: Pulani Press – to publish and co-publish books previously published in other countries, mostly books for the academic audience, to make these books more affordable in South Africa. Our first title is The Work of Repair by Thomas Cousins, under licence from Fordham University Press.
The second new imprint is Pulani Picture Books for beautifully illustrated picture books where we obtain the rights from publishers in other countries, especially from the Global South and from progressive publishers. We hope to translate these books into several local languages. So far we have two books in the pipeline, watch this space for more news about this exciting venture. One is from Brazil and the other is from Chile.
The 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair Invitation Programme
I participated in the Frankfurt Book Fair for the third time as a participant in the Invitation Programme. Here are some pictures of the other publishers from Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. As you can see we had lots of fun working, hanging out, and getting to know each other.
On to Paris
After Frankfurt, I traveled to Paris for the annual meeting of the ICIP of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers. The ICIP is the governing body for the Alliance, and I’m currently the coordinator of the English language network together with Ronny Augustinus from Indonesia. The Alliance membership is divided into language networks to make it easier to communicate with each other, and the English network works as a lingua franca network for those who can communicate in English. The other language networks are Arabic, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Persian.
A reunion with old friends
A small anecdote to leave you with, last year when I checked out of the hotel in Paris I left my very old, much loved Doc Martens behind. Thanks to friends and colleagues, I was reunited with my Docs this year. I hope you all enjoy a similar deep joy as I did when I put on my old friends.
There is so much more I could tell you about 2023, but these are a few highlights. It was wonderful to see Corry von Mayenburg again and to make friends with Azafi Omoluabi from Parresia Press in Nigeria and Harriet Tagoe from Ghana. Even though it was very brief – always lovely to see Gustavo Faraon from Dublinense in Brazil who I met in 2012 on the Invitation Programme and Lawrence Schimel, the person who knows Everyone in publishing and translation! As always spending time with my friends, colleagues and comrades in publishing who are part of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers is inspiring and exhilarating.