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Open publication - Press release:  New from Jacana 

The Book of War

"A rare feast - a book whose subject is people slowly making their way through the trudge and mud of their history, but which is also a real page turner. [It] makes visible in a way I have not see before, the Eastern Cape frontier wars."
William Kentridge.

"...  the true drama takes place below the surface"
JM Coetzee on The Story.

The Book of War was the creative component in an MA in Creative Writing supervised by Marlene van Niekerk and Willem Anker in the department of Afrikaans and Nederlands at Stellenbosch university. It was edited by Pete van der Woude.

Otelo Burning - A History

Otelo Burning at the BFI London Film Festival.

An early draft of the screenplay April 2007.

Later draft - July 2010

A thoughtful review from British Jesuits.

Screenplay nominated for Africa Movie Academy Award 2012.

Invitation to Africa Movie Academy Award 2012

An alternative history of the project.

Some backstory.

Finuala Dowling on Parting

‘Parting’ is an astonishing technical feat: written in utterly natural-sounding iambic pentameter, it stretches out like the kite lines it uses as images for our connection to our souls. It manages to be at once an utterly down-to-earth telling, a dramatically rendered scene and a sublime meditation. I wish thousands of beginner poets can see just what can be achieved by building with diction that mostly consists of single-syllable words."

Read the poems, and Dowling's assessment at: Stellenbosch Literary Project.

The Story

"Frank Fourie is a man whose needs are fairly simple. He’s on holiday in Pringle Bay with his wife and children. Like so many other families from up country they’ve come to their holiday cottage for the Christmas break. It’s Christmas Eve and Frank is taking a black bag of rubbish to the dump."

Review of The Story at LitNet.

You can order South African Pens 2011 - New Writing from Southern Africa from Jacana Media


Jane Rosenthal review of South African Pens 2011.

"The winning story... is a gem. Set in Pringle Bay, it has more than one narrative layered into its cleanly written pages and concerns a man, his driver's licence, a cop, a baboon and several "whatifs". "

SA Pen interview.

Pen/Studzinski

"First prize goes to 'The Story', an assured and professional piece of writing about a simple-seeming interaction between two men in which the true drama takes place beneath the surface. Dialogue is particularly deftly handled. In all, a fine illustration of the adage that, sometimes, less is more."

JM Coetzee
African Pens 2011 - New Writing from Southern Africa
Jacana

Thank you to SOUTH AFRICAN PEN Anthony Fleischer, Margie Orford, Deborah Horn-Botha, Cherie Wright, John Studzinski and, last but NOT least, JM Coetzee.

Thank you to the Writer's Guild of South Africa.

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