Introducing our readers to new and emerging voices in the literary space is our favorite thing to do here at Catalyst Press. One voice in particular stands out to me this year: Tsitsi Mapepa, the debut author of Ndima Ndima, which releases on November 7th.
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, now living in New Zealand, Tsitsi received her Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland in 2020. Her work is honest, heart-wrenching, and illuminating—and we are so honored to share it with our readers.Booklist calls Ndima Ndima “[a] truly insightful debut from an exciting new Zimbabwean author with a talent for writing the human experience,” and we couldn’t agree more!
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Tsitsi and chat a little bit about this incredible story.
Tsitsi Mapepa
SarahBelle Selig: Tsitsi. thank you so much for making time to speak with me! To start off, tell me about the process of writing Ndima Ndima.
Tsitsi Mapepa: I am a perfectionist, I want things organized, but when it comes to my writing, I am a pantser (I work by the seat of my pants). The stories in Ndima Ndima were never written in order. It helped me when I got stuck, unsure of what to write following the finished story. So I jumped to the most exciting stories I had in mind. I still do this, even when I’m writing a novel. I know some writers would find it strange and time consuming when it comes to structural development, but that’s just how I craft my stories.
SS: Have you always enjoyed writing?
TM: Yes, I started writing when I was young. When I was in high school I attempted writing a novel, which I never finished. And I also wrote a collection of poetry on loose papers and notebooks.
SS: You emigrated from Zimbabwe in 2007. What was been your expat experience? Did writing Ndima Ndima feel like going home?
TM: I moved to New Zealand because my husband was already here. So, for the two of us, it was a new beginning. For me, the most challenging thing was raising our children in the absence of our closed ones. In our culture, we strongly rely on other family members for extra support.
When it came to creating the landscape in Ndima Ndima, it was like scraping for the images of a home buried at the core of my heart. This part of the novel left me with a smiling soul, because I could see what I miss on the page.
Editor’s Note: We’re revisiting this 2020 Q&A with Peter because now you can buy all three of his thrillers in one convenient bundle! The Dark Web Trilogy bundle is out on May 16, and pre-orders are available now.
Peter Church’s Dark Web Trilogy takes readers to the dark side of our digital lives. Starting with Crackerjack, these interconnected techno-thrillers explore the dangers lurking in a shadowy, underground world where the virtual and the physical collide in dangerous ways. The final installment in the series, Bitter Pill, comes to US readers on June 15. We caught up with Peter to chat about the series, his process for writing these connected stories, and if we might see more from the characters his created.
Today, I have the honor of chatting with Bridget Pitt, the author of Eye Brother Horn, which we have the privilege of publishing here at Catalyst Press.
An activist, a critically-acclaimed author, and a fascinating conversationalist, Bridget’s newest novel is an evocative look into the history of colonial South Africa as seen through the eyes of two young boys—Daniel, the son of white missionaries, and Moses, a Zulu orphan abandoned on a riverbank—who are raised as brothers on the mission of Umzinyathi in Zululand. I’ll never forget the first time I read this book, and I know you won’t either.To get you started, be sure to visit Literary Hub to read an excerpt from the novel.
In this chat, Bridget and I discuss the meaning of nationality, her literary influences, how she discovers the voices of her characters, and so much more. Let’s get started!
SarahBelle Selig: Hi Bridget, thanks for joining me! I’d love to start with you telling our readers a bit about your writing background. You’ve definitely seen some great success in your early forays into fiction, with your first crime novel being shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2011, and for the 2012 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. But you were also an outspoken environmental and human rights activist in South Africa for many years, and actively spoke out as a journalist against apartheid policies. In what ways is this new story a continuation of that work? How does writing fiction feel different to you, and within fiction, what genres appeal to you?
Bridget Pitt: Eye Brother Hornis my fourth novel, and my first foray into the historical fiction. My first and third books were literary fiction, with the second straddling crime and literary fiction. I realised when writing this book that I was not cut out to be a writer of crime fiction, although I occasionally enjoy reading it. But as a writer I am more compelled by the motivations and the relationships of the characters, and by the unraveling and re-knitting of people’s lives that follow acts of violence, than by how a crime is solved.
Bridget Pitt
For me the spark of a novel may be a character, a relationship, a story, or just a place … the seed for my third novel was a burnt-out hotel in the Drakensberg mountains. Literary fiction allows for the greatest flexibility in weaving these elements into a narrative.
I have co-authored one non-fiction book, a memoir and spiritual reflection of a wilderness guide and friend, Sicelo Mbatha, and a commissioned book on urban nature conservation. I found it both soothing and constraining working within the boundaries of non-fiction after the lawless expanse of fiction. If the right project popped up I’d be up for writing more non-fiction, but even when working on non-fiction assignments I find myself turning everything into a story.
My own activism has always been strengthened and inspired by fiction written with a critical social lens. Story telling is inherently transformative, and can be a powerful medium for advancing insights, provoking questions, and catalysing change. Writing fiction enables me to explore some of the nuances and complexities of social transitions which cannot easily be conveyed in polemical nonfiction. My writing and activism breathe life into each other, although I am acutely aware of the need to trust the reader to draw their own conclusions, rather than driving social points for home with a sledge hammer.
SS: I know you looked into your own family’s history in the research for Eye Brother Horn. You were born in Zimbabwe, raised in South Africa, but you have European ancestors. What do you consider your nationality? What does nationality mean to you?
BP: The Nigerian philosopher Bayo Akomolafe tells us that the human is not a thing within a territory, the human is a territory. Nationality, in the sense of the country where you hold citizenship, is one of many forces that shape our inner ‘territory’. But it’s a continuously evolving and intangible force, and the compatriots of a country as contested as South Africa doubtlessly hold wildly differing ideas of what their nationality means to them.
Like all humans, I am a territory with an entanglement of many different geographical and cultural reference points. I grew up with my eyes turned north – three grandparents had immigrated from England, one was a third generation South African. I was raised on A. A. Milne, Frances Hodgson Burnett and Mark Twain. I knew about the renaissance, the impressionists, the cubists, I listened to Rachmaninoff and the Rolling Stones. My father fell in love with Italy when he was stationed there in the Second World War, and took me there at the age of 13 to marvel at the wonders of European ‘civilisation’. My maternal grandparents were quintessentially English, offering afternoon tea and scones to be taken while flipping through back copies of the London Illustrated News featuring photos of stocky Royal princelings in tweed jackets (I envied them not because they were royalty but because they seemed to have unlimited access to ponies).
I was not given the benefit of learning an indigenous language other than Afrikaans, although I tried to pick up isiZulu at the lively gatherings hosted by our family housekeeper in our backyard. The little South African “history” I was taught at school was a grandiose and tedious fantasy about God helping the Boers and Brits to defeat unruly local tribes. I knew almost nothing of African art, music, mythology or beliefs.
My older siblings left South Africa for England as soon as they could, but I did not feel the same pull. I felt deeply connected to the South Africa landscape, to the Drakensberg mountains where we hiked every winter, to the highveld grasslands around Johannesburg where I rode horses. I went to university in 1976, and soon became immersed in the anti-apartheid struggle. What drew me was not only a strong belief in the cause, but also for the first time in my life I could interact with my fellow black South Africans as comrades. Of course, there was much complexity in that relationship, and my comrades were quick to disabuse me of any feelings of arrogance or tendency to patronise that came with growing up as a white person in apartheid South Africa. This experience was profoundly transforming, and strengthened both my connections to the place and its people, and my resolve to fight for a more just and equal society. Unfortunately, we are still striving to achieve this. But I never seriously contemplated leaving South Africa after this time.
I left Zimbabwe at the age of two and have no memories of it, although I have visited a few times and found it to be a beautiful country with many creative, resilient and resourceful people, notwithstanding successive dictators. My parents emigrated there in 1950 to escape the newly elected National Party and its racist agenda but were forced to return 10 years later due to financial difficulties. When I was a child, I would look at the sepia photos of our house in what was then Salisbury, with its chickens and vegetable gardens, and feel that I had been cheated out of an idyllic youth by being born too late. But the connection was more to some imaginary country home than to the actual place.
So I guess the territory that is me is woven with threads from of many lands, but if I had to choose a single label it would be South African. [Editor’s Note: Be sure to watch Bridget as part of our #ReadingAfrica Week panel, “Who Is African: Place, Identity, and Belonging in Literature” for longer discussion on this question]
And we’re back! We rejoin the Pearl of Sea team in part two of our Q&A. Missed part one? Check it out here to get all caught up. We’ll wait….
Now that that’s all set, let’s jump back in to the conversation with the writers and illustrators of our newest graphic novel, Pearl of the Sea. Pearl joins a host of new and forthcoming releases as part of Panel & Page, our series of graphic novels for readers of all ages. You’ll be hearing a lot more about other books in the series in the coming months.
In part two of our conversation, Anthony, Raffaella, and Willem discuss the process of bringing words and images together, their love of comics books, and how their new book shows “the importance of opening up and not being scared of showing our vulnerabilities.”
At the end of January, we finally get to share Pearl of the Sea with the world—an absolutely stunning middle-grade graphic novel about a young South African girl who meets a sea monster while abalone poaching. Everyone at Catalyst has loved working with Pearl of the Sea’s incredible creative team—Anthony Silverston, RaffaellaDelle Donne, and Willem Samuel of Cape Town’s renowned Triggerfish Animation Studio—to bring this book to global readers, and it’s been such a treat to receive such amazing reviews in the months leading up to its release. If you haven’t already, make sure to pre-order your copy right now, or check out the book in stores January 31st (or March 1st for readers in South Africa).
Today, I have the immense privilege of introducing you to Anthony, Raffaella and Willem as we chat about the making of this remarkable graphic novel. Let’s dive in!
First things first: whew! This year’s event was a huge one. We had three live panels, two written round-tables, two guest posts, a playlist, and one pre-recorded panel. We had a week-long #ReadingAfrica challenge, announced a new book, had two booklists on Bookshop.org (including one that was featured on the site’s front page) and even saw a #ReadingAfrica in-store bookstore display. This may have been our biggest one yet. Seriousl, look at all of this:
When we started #ReadingAfrica Week, we thought small. We were small, after all. We’d just unfurled our “Open for Business” banner earlier that year, and the idea was simple. We just wanted a way to announce ourselves and to shine a spotlight on our colleagues in indie publishing who were doing some of the same work we were. We couldn’t have imagined that six #ReadingAfrica Weeks later, we’d have formed incredible partnerships, built a reading community, gathered together writers and publishers, and because we’re readers too, we’ve also been excited to discover even more books and writers and publishers to love. This has been a great event.
In this post, we’re going to point you to everything we did this year, plus share one new bit of fun. We asked our panelists from our live events to share some of their favorite reads, and we’d like to share those with you. And don’t forget, you can find many of our panelists’ books in this booklist. The best way to support authors you love is to buy their books.
We’re so excited for the upcoming release of All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa, a graphic history of six untold legal cases that shaped the civil rights history of South Africa. Set during the pre-apartheid years, the acts of resistance and rebellion brought to life in All Rise were spearheaded by ordinary citizens from marginalized communities on a mission to improve the safety and freedoms of themselves and their loved ones. Each story is illustrated by a different South African illustrator, creating a visually arresting anthology representative of the vast beauty and complex multicultural history of the “Rainbow Nation”.
I’ve been an observer of this project from afar for many years, so it’s thrilling to see it all come together in print. And today I have the privilege of chatting with the author and historian behind the anthology, Richard Conyngham. Born and raised in South Africa and now living in Mexico City, Richard has degrees from the University of Cape Town and Cambridge University and many years of education and literary work under his belt, having worked with organizations like Equal Education, The Bookery, the London publisher Slightly Foxed, and the edtech organization MakeTomorrow. Back in 2016, he collaborated on his first graphic history with the Trantaal Brothers, an artist duo out of Cape Town (who also illustrated a chapter of All Rise), to create an illustrated companion to the O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha.
Richard spent the last six years researching and creating All Rise, and all that hard work has paid off to create a truly amazing end result. The collection is getting all sorts of hype from big names in the literary, comics and history worlds alike–including a Starred (!!) review from Kirkus–and we can’t wait to share the book with you when it hits the shelves on May 17th.
Hannes Barnard is a Catalyst Press trailblazer. Though we’ve published several books in translation before, his novel, Halley’s Comet, is our very first one for young readers. Books are a way to explore the world, and we hope that readers—especially young readers—take that journey through our books.
And what a way to start!
Halley’s Comet, written and translated by Hannes, is a powerful and emotional coming-of-age story set in the last years of South African apartheid. Kirkus called it “a thrilling, tension-filled story of friendship, love, radicalism, and justice;” World Kid Lit praised it writing, “This YA story is a crossover novel that is bound to stay with readers – young and old – long after they finish it;” and Sonia Patel, author of William C. Morris Award finalist Rani Patel In Full Effect, writes “Hannes Barnard delivers an indelible exploration of the importance of empathy in seeing color without seeing inferiority.” In short, this is a truly great book.
The novel centers on Pete, a white 16-year-old schoolboy. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby— until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a Black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio form an era-defying friendship that is sparked by a shared secret. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever.
We talked with Hannes about his work, how he created characters with kindness and empathy, how reading translated literature can “drive out preconceptions and open our eyes and minds,” his advice for young writers, and much more.
We are so excited to be the North American publisher for Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa. This thought-provoking anthology is the latest collection from Short Story Day Africa, a non-profit established to develop and share the diversity of Africa’s voices through publishing and writing workshops. And though we usually do author Q&As for our new releases, because this release features 21 authors, we’ve decided to do something a little different.
We’ve talked to some of the Disruption authors, and asked them to share some thoughts about why they write. What compels them to fill blank pages with words, images, scenes, and dialogue. What keeps them writing when it’s hard, when it feels like the words won’t come, when that story you need to tell just won’t let you go. And they answered. With thoughtful, smart, inspiring statements about what keeps them going (Responses have been edited for clarity)
Note: This post is originally from November 2019. We’re sharing it again because we’re excited to release the second book in Helen’s trilogy—The Rising Tide—on July 13, 2021. Learn more about the book, and order your copy here. You can also enter to win a copy of The Rising Tide at Goodreads. The giveaway runs through July 6.
We’re so excited to add more books for young readers to our catalog. It has always been a part of who we are. We recognize the importance of giving kids and young adults the tools they need to be readers for life. One of the most important tools is giving them books that speak to them and their experiences. Books that value their voices and their concerns. It’s one of the many reasons we’re so proud to publish The Thousand Steps by Helen Brain.
The Thousand Steps is the first in Helen’s futuristic Fiery Spiral trilogy, and is the story of 16-year-old Ebba who has lived her entire life in a bunker deep within Cape Town’s Table Mountain. When she is suddenly elevated from the bunker, she finds that everything she knew about her life, and the world “above,” was wrong. Now shouldering the immense responsibility of her new life, Ebba must fight to save her friends still trapped in the bunker and facing execution any day. Helen’s book deftly explores race, class, and climate change while telling a story that will captivate young readers. School Library Journal praised the book writing, “This novel will draw readers in with its high stakes and well-developed characters.”
