Tag: crime fiction

#ReadingAfrica 2020 Events

This year we’ve teamed up with the literature-loving folks at LitNet to present two virtual events in conjunction with our #ReadingAfrica Week celebration. We’d love to have you join us!

#ReadingAfrica Events:

December 6 12:00 PM EST/7:00 PM South Africa: A #ReadingAfrica Week Kickoff

Authors and publishers discuss the landscape of African literature and publishing, featuring Justin Cox (African Books Collective), Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (The Theory of Flight), Jessica Powers (author/Catalyst Press founder), Rešoketšwe Manenzhe (Scatterlings) and Ahmed Ismail Yusuf (The Lion’s Binding Oath), Izak De Vries (LitNet), moderates.  12:00 PM EST/7:00 PM South Africa

Watch the full event here

December 9 12:00 PM EST/7:00 PM South Africa: #ReadingAfrica Crime Writers Panel

A discussion on the rise of African crime fiction, featuring: Sifiso Mzobe (Young Blood), Mike Nicol (Sleeper), Ameera Patel (Outside the Lines), Jessica Powers (Catalyst Press founder), and Bettina Wyngaard (Jagter), Michael Sears (the Detective Kubu Series) moderates.

Watch the full event here

This Week in Literary News, Week of November 15

Another week, another selection of some of the week’s news! (News here being defined as book and book-related. I’m not sure I have the strength to recap the news at-large).

Yewande Omotoso | photo by Victor Dlamini

Over at The New Internationalist, there’s a lovely short essay by Yewande Omotoso on why she’s filled her house with plants. Yewande is a regular contributor there, so be sure to check out more of her work— they are all just as lovely.  You can also pick up her fantastic novel, Bom Boy, of which we are proud to be the US publisher.

There are two great pieces at LitHub. The first, from Rebecca Solnit asks readers to seriously consider what it being asked of them with post-election calls to bridge divides: “[T]he truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?” The second is a reprint of Walter Moseley’s speech from the National Book Awards where he was honored with The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: “There’s a great weight hanging over the reception of an award when the underlying subject is, the first Black man to receive… We the people who are darker than blue, we have been here, on this continent, in this storm for 400 years. […] Is this a dying gasp or a first breath? Is today different from any other day over the past 400 years? I prefer to believe that we are on the threshold of a new day, that this evening is but one of ten thousand steps being taken to recognize the potential of this nation.” And congratulations to all of the NBA winners! You can see a list of honorees here.

Continue reading “This Week in Literary News, Week of November 15”

This Week in Literary News, Week of November 8

Things have been… interesting in the US recently, and there will certainly be. some stories to tell about the last four years. As the Associated Press reports, “In 2021 and beyond, look for waves of releases about the Trump administration and about the president’s loss to Democratic candidate Joe Biden.” But as for a book from Trump himself, “Several publishers told the AP that they don’t believe Trump will have the same global appeal as former President Barack Obama […] Any publisher signing with Trump or a top administration official might face the anger not just of Trump critics among the general public, but from within the industry.”

Scholastic announced a three-book deal with Ruby Bridges. Bridges, who at age six de-segregated New Orleans’ all-white William Frantz Elementary School on November 14, 1960, will “pen three new picture books to bring her trailblazing story to a new generation of children,” Publishers Weekly reports. Sadly, this week saw the death of Bridges’ mother Lucille. Of her own childhood, Lucille told the Courier-Journal in a 2009 interview, “The bus would come pick up the white kids, but I couldn’t go to school. I would watch them go with tears in my eyes. I prayed if I ever got married, I wanted my kids to go to school.”   Continue reading “This Week in Literary News, Week of November 8”