Hot from the Press
Late last week, we received the amazing news that Young Blood, Sifiso Mzobe’s crime novel set in Durban’s Umlazi township, was shortlisted for the 2022 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award! The winner will be announced on October 27th, but we’re so thrilled to see Sifiso on this incredible list of finalists. Read more about the book at the end of this post!
Huge congrats to Bridget Krone, the award-winning author of Small Mercies, for the launch of her newest middle grade novel, The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap! To celebrate her South African pub date last week (don’t worry, USA readers! The book is available in North America and worldwide in just a few weeks), Top Class Books in Hilton, South Africa hosted a marvelous launch with almost 100 attendees. Bridget will spend the next few weeks touring schools in Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg, as well as attending book signings and readings.
Also this week, Today is Tomorrow author Caroline Kurtz was honored alongside her sister Jane and the Reverend Bill Chadwick during a virtual event hosted by the Presbyterian Writers Guild. Caroline’s first memoir, The Road Called Down on Both Sides: Growing Up in Ethiopia and America was awarded the Presbyterian Writers Guild’s Best First Book Award. You can read more about the event, and Caroline’s response to the award, here
And finally, The History of Man author Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Bom Boy author Yewande Omotoso will both be taking part as panelists at the 2022 Open Book Festival in Cape Town, September 2-4!
In other news…
The trial concerning Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon and Schuster is in its third week. The prosecution called Stephen King as its star witness, and PRH CEO Madeline McIntosh was called to the stand to testify for the defense. Margot Atwell of Feminist Press reflected on the trial and what it means for indie presses, as did Katy Waldman at The New Yorker.
Literary giant David McCullough died this week, and Salman Rushdie was attacked at a literary event. He’s expected to survive but is likely to lose an eye. A reading event in his honor will be taking place on the steps of the New York Public Library.
Jared Kushner’s memoir comes out next week, and critics are having a field day (see LitHub’s takeaways from Dwight Garner’s review, and this incredible headline from Vanity Fair). A Florida school district has added “warning” labels to 110 books, and in a weird turn of events, the Bible was banned in a school district in Texas.
The Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman debuted at #1 last week. Read about the long road to its development, and while you’re at it, check out these other literary adaptations this month. In other adaptation news, the memoir from pop duo Tegan and Sara, High School, is getting the TV treatment, and a new biopic about Emily Bronte is getting a few things wrong (but also looks amazing). A Swedish gaming company acquired IP rights to all of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
#ReadingAfrica roundup
In this section, we share 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 December 4-10!
Author Wil Haygood, of The Butler fame, was just awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the finalists for the Prix Ivoire for African Literature in French were announced, and the 2022 Diverse Book Awards longlist was announced, including many writers of African descent. The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is back from September 9-11, and the shortlist for the fest’s Elizabeth Nunez Awards was announced this week.
The Jericho Prize and the #Merky Books’ New Writers’ Prize are back for another year of seeking the UK’s best unpublished authors of African or Caribbean descent. And ICYMI, Nadifa Mohamed took home the Wales Book of the Year Award earlier this month for The Fortune Men.
Leïla Slimani will chair the 2023 Booker Prize, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s short nonfiction work on being a Black female creative hit shelves this week.
From the Backlist
(Does 2021 count as backlist yet? Just roll with it!)
In honor of Sifiso being shortlisted for the 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, let’s take a look at Young Blood, Sifiso’s North American debut and the winner of multiple awards including the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, the Herman Charles Bosman Prize, the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, and the South African Literary Award.
Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe
Cars, money, girls: this is what you need to get ahead in Umlazi.
Sipho, a seventeen-year-old from Umlazi, a township on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa. drops out of high school and joins a carjacking syndicate to make a name for himself and escape his family’s low-income life. Along with hijacking partners Musa and Vusi, Sipho learns the tricks of the dangerous trade and pushes deeper into the underbelly of Umlazi under the guidance of gang leader Sibani, while partying heavily and chasing women nightly despite loving his longtime girlfriend Nana.
Candid and unapologetic, Young Blood is the story of the intricate balance of circumstance and choice, swift gain and incredible loss, as Sipho finds out how far he can push his luck before the damage is irrevocable—and the consequences deadly. Both a red-hot crime novel of car heists, sex, and rival gangs and a coming-of-age story of a teenager navigating the costs of the fast life, Young Blood reveals the devastating violence and raw beauty of life in South Africa’s townships.
Praise for Young Blood
Listed as one of “Tsitsi Dangarembga’s 10 Favorite Books” in Vulture
“A landmark in South African crime fiction.” —New York Journal of Books
“With crisp, cinematic prose, Mzobe transports us into the dark abyss of Durban’s harrowing nightlife, where gang violence is rife, life is precarious, and young blood is carelessly used and discarded. Winner of the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa when it was first published 10 years ago, this raw coming-of-age novel will resonate with its new audiences for its all-embracing tale of young people eager to escape poverty but with too few choices.”— Library Journal
“Starting with smaller crimes like drug use and theft, Sipho’s actions intensify as he falls further in lust with the lavish rewards that crime gets him. Of course, such bad judgment calls come with increasingly dangerous risks, and the window for Sipho to choose a different path in life closes further with every escalating act. The fetishization of wealth, from upscale cars to access to expensive drugs, is portrayed deftly, illuminating Sipho’s choices as being mired in peer pressure and capitalist messaging […] Blunt, brisk, and fast-paced.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Young Blood drops the reader straight into the Umlazi Township of Durban, South Africa, where, having quit school and desperate for cash, young Sipho finds himself crossing increasingly harrowing boundaries into drugs, violence, and criminality. Sifiso Mzobe has written a compassionate, unsentimental, and artful portrait of a young man on the threshold of trying to preserve his life and his humanity by the very means that will almost inevitably destroy both.” —Paul Harding, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Tinkers
About the author
Sifiso Mzobe is a writer, content editor and translator. He was born and bred in Umlazi Township, south of Durban, South Africa, where he obtained his primary schooling and where he currently resides. After attending St. Francis College, he studied Journalism at the Damelin Business Campus in Durban. Mzobe was listed on the “Africa 39 List,” a UNESCO initiative which names 39 of the most promising authors under the age of 40 from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora. His second book, a collection of short stories titled, Searching for Simphiwe was published by Kwela Books in April 2020. He is currently working on his second novel titled, Durban December.
Learn more about Young Blood or order your copy here.
