Hot from the Press
We got some wonderful awards news this week for one of the authors from Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa! Mbozi Haimbre was named a finalist for the African Speculative Fiction Society’s Nommo Award for Best Short Story for her story, “Shelter.” We are so thrilled for Mbozi, and hope you will join us in celebrating! Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa is the 2021 anthology from Short Story Day Africa, a nonprofit based in Cape Town, South Africa on a mission to elevate new and emerging African authors. And it’s available now worldwide!
This week, we celebrated World Bee Day with (buzz-worthy!) excerpts from two Catalyst titles on our site, and LitNet posted this amazing interview with Hannes Barnard, Halley’s Comet author and translator. And ICYMI, two Catalyst authors participated in great events this week that you can catch up on now. First, All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion author Richard Conyngham and illustrator Tumi Mamabolo took part in a virtual event with Interference Archive, moderated by our very own Catalyst Press publicist Ashawnta Jackson. And later in the week, The Theory of Flight and The History of Man author (and recent Windham Campbell Prize winner!) Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu was hosted by the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign as part of their Contemporary African Voices series.
Awards News
Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, took home the International Booker Prize this week, making Shree the first Indian winner of the prize. It is the first Indian language book to win the Booker, and the first in Hindi to be nominated. You can watch the ceremony here. The Art of Losing by French novelist Alice Zeniter took home the Dublin Literary Award this week (side note: one of the authors we’re proud to publish, the talented Yewande Omotoso, was shortlisted for this award in 2018 for her novel The Woman Next Door), and the Nebula Award winners were announced. And if you’re playing catch up on your awards news: last week the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses announced their 2022 Firecracker Award Finalists and the 2022 Locus Awards for science fiction were announced. Finally, a high school activist was awarded the PEN/Berenson Award for organizing protests against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.
#ReadingAfrica Roundup
In this section, we’re sharing publishing news, book recs, and more all focused on African and African diaspora authors. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our sixth annual #ReadingAfrica week, this year Dec 4-10!
African authors cleaned up at the Locus Awards this year, with awards going to Nnedi Okorafor, Wole Talabi, Jordan Ifueko, Namina Forna, and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. Ntsika Kota became the first Eswatini author to win the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and an awesome database was just released that highlights women involved in publishing and the book trade in Africa. Colin Kaepernick is set to release a new graphic novel in 2023, and on LitHub, artist Gio Swaby discusses her portraiture of Black women and how it disrupts colonial legacies in the arts industry.
In the Book World
Sally Rooney is one of Time’s 100 most influential people of the year, Margaret Atwood wields a flame thrower in honor of banned books, and Isabel Allende admits to changing the endings of books she translated to make more complex female characters. The Turkish and Indian publishing worlds are suffering due to economic crises and inflation, and State Farm withdrew its support for an LGBTQ+ inclusivity book project after a whistleblower caused an uproar from conservative clients.
In thought provoking reads, one queer reader discusses the joy in getting to actively choose books about straight people, rather than straight main characters being the default. Tirzah Prize resists the dead girl trope, Nikki DeMarco demands school librarians, and Danika Ellis explains TikTok’s algospeech and its daunting similarities to 1984’s Newspeak.
And finally, horrible covers for classic books for your viewing pleasure.
