Rozena Maart, signing books at the first South African book launch of The Writing Circle, Wordsworth Bookstore, Waterfront, Cape Town, May 2008. Bridgette Dreyer, a friend from Steenberg High School, sitting close by…at the three-in-one launch of The Writing Circle, Mix It! Voices of the Bo-Kaap, and African Gold: The Story of Africa’s Nobel Laureates.
The Writing Circle has its own page. Check it for details of the book.
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Please contact Ayesha George–Publicity
I am taking bookings for the Fall/Autumn semester.
Cape Town Book fair
June 20, 2008 Edition 1
A RECORD 50 494 people attended the third Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF) last weekend. The four-day Fair, with the theme Words Create Worlds came to an end on Monday, having had 7 194 children through its doors at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The fair, run in partnership with the Frankfurt Book Fair and under the auspices of the Publisher’s Association of South Africa (Pasa), was opened amid a buzz of activity by Professor Kader Asmal on Saturday, as people rushed to collect tickets for the first events of the day.
Speaking at the opening press conference of the CTBF, Dudley Schroeder, executive director of Pasa, said: “The United Nations has released figures showing that publishing is the largest creative industry in the world. The book industry is 20 times bigger than the entire international film industry.”
Members of the public flooded the more than 400 events, entertained with Michael Poliza’s breathtaking slide presentation from his book Eyes Over Africa, inspired by Riaan Manser’s account of his circumnavigation of Africa from Around Africa on my Bicycle, reflecting on the TRC process with Alex Boraine in discussion on his book A Life in Transition with Mac Maharaj and Max du Preez and faced with the reality of violence against women in Rozena Maart’s The Writing Circle. There was something for everyone.
Boraine, deputy chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said on Saturday: “This kind of gathering today is so important. It’s seldom that people have an opportunity to discuss these things.”
Robin Malan said of the panel discussion he chaired with Rozena Maart, Wendy Clark, and Anne Mayne on how violence against women is portrayed, perpetuated and/ or exposed in contemporary writing: “The three very different personalities of the panellists gave us the diverse aspects of the social activist, the legal prosecutor and the psychoanalyst in their nonetheless unified response that writing back about abuse and violence against women was both a necessary social response and an affirmation of dignity, achievable as much through the novel as through autobiography.”
Vanessa Badroodien, director of the Fair, said: “The intention to excite the public about reading was certainly achieved.” She said the link between reader and writer, which was central to the fair, came through strongly.
- Ms Magzine
Bookmarks: Great Reads for Spring 2008
Comments on goodreads.com
The Writing Circle
By Rozena Maart
(TSAR Publications)
Using rotating perspectives, Maart shows how the women in a South African writing group react when one of them is raped. As they help her cope, they’re forced past boundaries of friendship to confront apartheid and class.