Hot, pink, hip & happenin’ – the launch of Nikki Temkin’s Chic Jozi was a real Joburg “jol”. It was held at Roseboys on Thursday, 3 December – where the waitrons danced on the bar and on the tables, and the music cranked out, from Neil Diamond (yes, seriously) to Katrina & the Waves to Miriam Makeba’s always popular Click Song.
Arriving at Roseboys in the late Joburg afternoon heat and new, strange humidity, each guest was greeted with a deep pink and viciously-delicious cocktail. The tables were a feast for the eyes, bedecked with flowers, lamps, wonderful wine and the most-delicious-ever camembert cheese.
Author Temkin arrived in a sparkly party dress with her husband Alex Agulnik. She was enthusiastically greeted by the Penguin Books team – having a ball at the last launch for the year!
Penguin’s Alison Lowry began the speeches saying how she had overhead a conversation recently in Cape Town where someone said it was not worth visiting Joburg. Lowry laughed and said, “I beg to differ!”. Calling Chic Jozi a “lovely, lovely book” she said that the timing for it “couldn’t be better” especially with regards to the “vibe” in South Africa at the moment with the World Cup on its way.
Temkin thanked Lowry while honouring Nadine Rubin, who originated the “Chic Jozi” concept five years ago. She shared how hard it was to write the book with a baby who suddenly decided not to sleep for six months!
Temkin’s own words brought it all together, “I think that the book speaks for itself. I am not going to say too much about Chic Jozi. I want everybody to love our city. I want people to buy the book because it’s my idea of what fun you can have here. It’s a discriminating collection of places that I love and new places that I have discovered. I want you to squeeze the life out of the city. I want you to tell people to come and visit and obviously buy the book!”.
With that, the short ‘n sweet speeches came to an end, guests spilled out onto the pavement into the then cool evening air, and Jozi treated everyone with one of her pink and orange sunsets. There was to be no thunderstorm this night!
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