Tag: Tstsi Dangarembga | CatalystPress

This Week in Literary News: Week of June 27

Congratulations are in order for author Tsitsi Dangarembga. The author and filmmaker who was recently shortlisted for the Booker Award for her novel This Mournable Body, has just been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She is the first Black woman to win the prize. We love Tsitsi around these parts, not just because she’s an amazing writer, but that she has championed two of our books— Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe and The Theory of Fight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu—naming them as two of her favorite books in a Vulture article last year, and providing a blurb for Siphiwe’s novel.

**Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu | Photo © Joanne Olivier**

And speaking of Siphiwe and congratulations, she was shortlisted for the Writing Gender residency sponsored by Huza Press and the Goethe Institut Kigali. The residency supports two authors–one African and one German—as “they complete or make significant advances with a work-in-progress novel manuscript.” The program hopes to make space “for opening up conversations about gender, its modes of construction, histories, representation and relationality to power.” We are so proud to publish Siphiwe’s novels, The Theory of Flight (out now) and The History of Man (coming January 2022). Good luck, Siphiwe!

Mahogany Browne has been named the first poet-in-residence at New York’s Lincoln Center. As the New York Times reports, the residency “will run from July to September and will include in-person and virtual events such as poetry readings, film screenings, discussions and performances.” Continue reading “This Week in Literary News: Week of June 27”

This Week in Literary News: Week of March 7

In Catalyst news, two of our wonderful authors got works published this week! In New Frame, Unmaking Grace author Barbara Boswell writes on the role of Booker shortlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga’s art and activism in Zimbabwe and beyond, and The Lion’s Binding Oath author Ahmed Ismail Yusuf evaluates what the death of George Floyd and – just a few months later and a few blocks away – the death of Somali-American Dolal Idd means for the future of the American police force.

In celebrity book news, E.L. James, famed author of the Fifty Shades of Grey series, announced a new book in the series to be published this summer: Freed, written from Christian Grey’s perspective. Fans of the cult television series “American Horror Story” are reading Dante’s The Divine Comedy after a fan theory went viral, and a self-published cookbook by Andy Warhol is going to auction later this month and is expected to sell for no less than $30,000. And ICYMI (although I don’t see how), Dr. Seuss‘ publishing house has made the decision to cease printing of six of the author’s earlier children’s books, including McElligot’s Pool and And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, on account of racist imagery and derogatory character portrayals. Read up on the debate, then check out this Guardian piece on the history of removing racist sections from children’s books and one poet’s response on Book Riot.
Continue reading “This Week in Literary News: Week of March 7”

This Week in Literary News: Week of January 10

I guess this is what is known as an eventful week. There is just so very much is happening in the world at any given moment. Here’s hoping everyone has what they need to make it through this, and what are sure to be many more, eventful weeks.

One of the big events here in the US is the second impeachment of Donald Trump. I, for one, have really been putting my high-school civics education to use over the past week (and four years). For those who either want to brush up on the impeachment process, or pass along that info to a young learner, Pop Culture Classroom has a free comic about the Watergate Scandal, and “using the Watergate Scandal as context, this comic also provides students insights into the impeachment process and how it protects the checks and balances between Federal branches.” And over at JSTOR Daily (full disclosure: I’m a regular contributor there), they’ve created “Politics and Power in the United States: A Syllabus,” to help put our current political moment into historical context. And the New York Times is soliciting comments on how “teachers, particularly history, social studies, or civics teachers […]” are “addressing last Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol with their students.”

Africa in Words has a wrap-up post featuring all of the literary happenings over the past month. Festivals! Readings! New Books! Events! They’ve even included one of our favorite events from December— our #ReadingAfrica Week celebration and panel discussions.

“Women had always been part and parcel of the independence movement in Africa. In Southern Africa and Tanzania they stood side-by-side with the men to fight, so they were very much part of it.” As part of their series, “Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post-Independence History,” Africa is a Country has an interview with Fatma Alloo of the Tanzania Media Women’s Association on how women have, and continue to, use media to create change. Continue reading “This Week in Literary News: Week of January 10”