To say that Catalyst founder, Jessica Powers, is familiar with southern Africa would be the understatement of the year. Through her studies, fellowships, and frequent visits, she’s not only developed a love for the region—particularly South Africa— she’s created a second home there. A home complete with family, friends, and memories. The love of this region is partly what led to the creation of Catalyst Press. She wanted to share the writing she’d fallen in love with with as many people as possible.
Though we’ve expanded our offerings to go beyond the southern region, we’ll always remember where it all started. Over the years, we’ve developed a strong presence in South Africa, building a strong network of writers, literary organizations, and schools (and we have a physical presence in the country with our talented South African office manager, SarahBelle and our literary liaison, Izak.)
This is a region rich with history, and like most histories, it’s full of equal amounts sadness and joy. Tsitsi Mapepa, a Zimbabwean writer and author of our recent release Ndima Ndima, writes about this in her short statement about art and borders:
National borders are designed to do a number of things in our Southern African region. Not only do they limit our freedom, they split the bond of a brother and sister, stopping us from spreading love through our cultures. Artists have been, for a long time used their talents to eliminate this disconnection through music, theatre, and writing. As a writer, I lean on words to communicate with all humankind. And positive words are those that remind us that we are one, despite the colour of our skins. Our lovely artist, Lucky Dube sang a song: Different Colours, One People. —Tsitsi Mapepa
Many of our releases focus on the history of this region, and the ways that people have resisted, thrived, lived, and loved through it. From the true stories in All Rise, to the fictionalized friendships in Halley’s Comet, to the historical fiction of Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, to the gentle and sweet every day life of a South African child seen in Niki Daly’s Lolo books, we hope that our books cover the breadth of experiences of the region.
For further reading:
The Johannesburg Review of Books is one of our favorite literary outlets. It is “an independent literary review, publishes reviews, essays, poetry, photographs and short fiction from South Africa, Africa and beyond.” The most recent issue features excerpts from new work by Lauren Beukes, and one from Coloured: How Classification Became Culture by Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel, a history of the Afrikaans language.
New Contrast is “one of the first South African literary journals and it is devoted to publishing the best of poetry and prose, art, reviews and interviews from both local and international authors.”
The Shallow Tales review is another literary journal that expands far beyond the borders of southern Africa, with work “from Africa and across the world.” But it’s included here because the theme of its most recent issue is “Displacement,” which seems like a perfect fit for our focus on borders and it also includes this fantastic story by Rutendo Chidzodzo, a Zimbabwean Afrosurrealist writer.
