This Q&A with the wonderfully talented Futhi Ntshingila first appeared in our newsletter. If you’d like to see more things like this, and find out about giveaways, and events, and new releases, and lots more, you should subscribe to our newsletter. We’re fun, we’re nice, and we promise not to flood your inbox. Interested? Subscribe here. Continue reading “Q&A with Futhi Ntshingila”
Q&A with Elsa Silke
This has been a really great Women in Translation Month so far. We’ve been clicking on that #WiTMonth tag and finding some great reads (because when your to-be-read piles looks like the ones at Catalyst HQ, what’s one more?). There are a wealth of amazing voices all over the world waiting for readers. We have a few of our voices to spotlight this month, so be sure to check out our other posts from this, and WiTMonths past, to read about our authors, our translators, and how you can continue to add more world literature by women to your bookshelves.
We’re continuing our celebration by chatting with translator Elsa Silke. Elsa was the translator for Chanette Paul’s continent-hopping thriller Sacrificed. She is an accomplished translator who has translated works by Ingrid Winterbach, Irma Joubert, and in 2006, she was awarded the SATI/Via Afrika Prize for outstanding translation in fiction for her translation of This Life by Karel Schoeman. We talked to Elsa about her background, translating Sacrificed, and how translated works enrich readers. (Check out this three-chapter excerpt (PDF) from the novel!) Continue reading “Q&A with Elsa Silke”
Q&A with Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds
We’re celebrating Women in Translation Month by turning the spotlight on the authors and translators who make our books so wonderful. Today, we meet Rachel Hildebrandt. Rachel is a German-language translator and one of the founders of the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, an organization whose aim is to get world literature—particularly translation—to as wide an audience as possible. Rachel has translated several books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Fade to Black by Zoë Beck and Staying Human by Katharina Stegelmann. Her work with Global Literature in Libraries has provided an amazing resource for readers who want to read globally, and add more women’s voices to their shelves. We’re excited to bring Rachel into the #TeamCatalyst fold, as the translator for our upcoming release The Wall by Max Annas.
We chatted with Rachel about her background, her work, how readers can read more broadly, and how she uses translation to “open up windows and openings where they have been boarded up or forgotten.”
Q&A with Jive Media Africa
Our monthly newsletter is full of good stuff. We’ve got author news, events, and special sales. We have a good time there. Part of that good time is also being able to publish Q&As with our authors and partners that we then get to share with you. We’ve been republishing these Q&As here at our blog (you can read them here), but if you want to be among the first to read them, you can subscribe to our newsletter here!
The Q&A we’re sharing this time is with our South African partners, Jive Media Africa. We’ve teamed up with them to create our imprint Story Press Africa. Story Press Africa’s mission is to bring African histories and figures to life in the pages of our African Graphic Novel Series. The first installment in the series was Shaka Rising, and we’re so excited to bring more stories like this to readers everywhere. Continue reading “Q&A with Jive Media Africa”
Q&A with Reneilwe Malatji
One feature in our monthly newsletter that we just love is our Q&As with our authors. If you’re a subscriber, you’ve read some great ones, and if you’re not, let us help you! Subscribe here
We did a brief Q&A with Love Interrupted author Renielwe Malatji back in May that we’d like to share with you. Love Interrupted has already been getting some high praise. Foreword Reviews writes that the stories these stories “pack an emotional punch as they examine post-apartheid patriarchy through the eyes of various observant black women characters,” and Kirkus notes that “Many readers will see themselves in—and find themselves rooting for—the women in Malatji’s solid debut.”
Love Interrupted releases on on August 7. (And for a in-depth look at the design process for the collection’s cover, make sure to check out this Q&A with cover designer Karen Vermeulen) Continue reading “Q&A with Reneilwe Malatji”
Q&A with Karen Vermeulen
We think our books are good on the inside. Really, really good, in fact. We also think they’re pretty good on the outside, too. We consider it an added bonus. The reason they’re so nice inside and out, is one Karen Vermeulen. Karen is an illustrator who has designed the covers for We Kiss Them With Rain, The Lion’s Binding Oath, and the upcoming Love Interrupted (not to mention the releases coming next year that will have her special touch). We chatted with Karen to talk about her work, what goes into designing the perfect cover, and what’s next for this talented artist.
Keep up with Karen (and Sir Henry) on her website and on Instagram @Karen_vermeulen_illustration
Q&A with Martin Steyn
We’ve been re-posting interviews with Catalyst authors that originally appeared in our newsletter, because everyone—newsletter subscriber or not—should read these. Our authors are that good. But if you wanted to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, we wouldn’t mind. In fact, we’d be pretty happy about it. You’d get interviews like this plus event updates, giveaways, new release info, and more!
These past few months have been exciting for us, and Dark Traces is certainly a big part of that. The US-debut thriller by Martin Steyn has earned him quite a bit of praise. Library Journal called it a “captivating debut thriller,” and in a starred review, Kirkus praised the novel as “a dark, intriguing, and satisfying tale with strong characters.” We chatted with Martin about Dark Traces, his process, and the politics of crime writing.
Dark Traces is out now and available through Indiebound and Amazon. You can also read an excerpt from the novel here.
Q&A with Chanette Paul
We’re re-posting some of our author interviews that we’ve featured in our newsletter. Consider these just a little taste of all of the great things we send straight to your inbox every month. Keep up-to-date with all of the Catalyst Press goings-on by subscribing to our newsletter! We’re fun and our authors are amazing. It’s a win-win.
This Q&A is with author Chanette Paul. Her North American and English-language debut thriller Sacrificed was released in October 2017. The New York Journal of Books praised the novel and Chanette calling it “a page-turner that will keep you reading long past the moment the midnight oil burns out,” and hailing Chanette as “among the classiest thriller writers of our day.” We chatted with Chanette back in October right before the release of Sacrificed, a thriller fusing politics, race, and family drama. Read an excerpt here (PDF), and you can order the novel via our website or IndieBound. Continue reading “Q&A with Chanette Paul”
Q&A with Ahmed Ismail Yusuf
Earlier this month, we did a Q&A with The Lion’s Binding Oath author Ahmed Ismail Yusuf in our newsletter (What?! You don’t subscribe? Let us help: Subscribe here).
In advance of his upcoming Midwest book tour, we’re posting it here, too! Read on to learn more about Ahmed, his writing, and how books changed his life. Continue reading “Q&A with Ahmed Ismail Yusuf”