Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
March 17th, 2010 by Tracey
Ringing laughter is what most guests will remember from the launch of Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them. Visiting South Africa for the Time of the Writer Festival, Akpan was able to make time for his Joburg fans at the Nelson Mandela Square Exclusive Books this week. Akpan, a Catholic priest, delighted launch guests with his self-deprecating attitude and genuine warmth.
Say You’re One of Them is, of course, the collection of short stories that caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who made it one of her Book Club selections. Akpan says the resulting attention has allowed him to travel around the world – mostly through writers’ festivals invites. He speaks of writing as a “gift” – something that he needed to appreciate by acting on. When writing his book, he was often at the mercy of Nigeria’s on again, off again electricity supply, but he persevered. He wrote mainly at night on local computers while attending to his seminary studies and parishioners during the day. Asked for advice by an aspiring author in the audience, he said, “If you want to write, write!”. He said that a writer must be “ready to sit alone in that room, tell their friends not to visit and stay in that space”. Saying he “stumbled” upon his gift, he spent many years developing it including going to a writers’ school.
During the launch he said he’d originally aspired to be a columnist, writing a package of 4 opinion pieces which he sent off to various newspapers to try his luck. Feeling down and depressed when he didn’t receive a positive response, he eventually tried fiction – asking himself, “What do I have to lose?”. He was lucky, with several publishers keen to pick up his work. As a newly developing author he shared how he balked initially at being published because he didn’t feel he was ready. Finally, a year later, his short story, “My Parents’ Bedroom”, was published.
Asked how real the stories he writes are to him he replied that first he writes, then he researches. For him, “research is not the story”. But he does spend time sending his work out for comments and feedback, particularly when it comes to checking cultural details and honouring the local dialogue or “patois”. It is clear that although not biographical, the stories and children he writes about move him greatly. “I intentionally wanted to write about things that bothered me,” he said. For the future, he would love to write a novel but that is something he will need to learn how to do.
It was clear that the crowd at this launch – which comprised people from all over the world, as it happened – were only too happy to enjoy a touch of the Oprah magic that now surrounds Father Uwem Akpan.
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March 16th, 2010 by Tracey
Exclusive Books and Penguin Books take pleasure in inviting you to the launch of A Million Miles from Normal by Paige Nick. See you there!
About the book
Rachel Marcus has a great life and an amazing job as a top copywriter at an advertising agency in Johannesburg, or rather Rachel Marcus HAD a great life and an amazing job as a top copywriter at an advertising agency in Johannesburg – right up until she got fired …
Forced to sell everything she owns and leave Joburg in a hurry, Rachel moves to New York City where she plans to make a fabulous life for herself and prove to everyone back home that she’s not a complete disaster. Except that the only job she can find is at a crap advertising agency, with a hippie freak for a boss and an alcoholic drug addict for an art director. And the only apartment she can afford is the world’s smallest cockroach-infested rat trap. In fact, the only upside to her new life in the Big Apple is her new best friend – her frustratingly petite neighbour, Sue.
However, just when things seem to be going from bad to worse Rachel meets the oh-so delicious Jerrod Craig. And not only does Jerrod have all his own teeth but he is also Creative Group Head at one of the biggest advertising agencies in New York. Suddenly it looks like Rachel’s life might just be coming together – a handsome boyfriend with all the right connections can put a silver lining on any cloud. Now all she needs is that cup of tea…
Event Details
- Date: Thursday, 25 March 2010
- Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
- Venue: Exclusive Books Constantia Village,
Spaanschemat Road
Constantia - RSVP: To Exclusive Books Constantia Village, by 19 March,
constantia@exclusivebooks.co.za, 021 794 7800
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March 12th, 2010 by Tracey
POSTPONED – PLEASE SEE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW
The Rainbow Experience in partnership with The Book Lounge invites you to an “On the Couch” session with author Steven Otter.
Otter will be speaking about his book, Khayelitsha: uMlungu in a Township.
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March 10th, 2010 by Tracey
CANCELLED – CANCELLED – CANCELLED
This event has been cancelled due to road works in the Melrose Arch region that will make it difficult for people to reach the store. The event may be rescheduled – watch this space!
Penguin Books and Exclusive Books are pleased to invite you to the launch of the revised and updated From Joburg to Jozi: Stories about Africa’s infamous city.
Co-editor Heidi Holland will be in conversation with contributors Jo-Anne Richards and Bongani Madondo. We look forward to seeing you there!
Event Details
- Date: Saturday, 13 March 2010
- Time: 1:30 PM for 2:00 PM
- Venue: Exclusive Books, Mandela Square, Shop 111, Upper Level
Mandela Square
Sandton, Johannesburg | Map - Guest Speakers: Bongani Madondo, Jo-Anne Richards
- RSVP: thesquare@exclusivebooks.co.za, 011 784 5416
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March 9th, 2010 by Tracey
Exclusive Books and Penguin Books take pleasure in inviting you to come and meet Uwem Akpan.
His book of short stories, Say You’re One of Them, is Oprah Winfreys’ latest book club selection and the winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the Africa region.
Akpan’s extraordinary stories centre on African conflicts as seen through the eyes of children and describes their resilience and endurance in heartbreaking detail. From child trafficking to inter-religious conflicts, the author reveals in beautiful prose the resilience and endurance of children faced with the harsh consequences of deprivation and terror.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Event Details
- Date: Tuesday, 16 March 2010
- Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
- Venue: Exclusive Books, Mandela Square, Shop 111, Upper Level
Mandela Square
Sandton, Johannesburg | Map - RSVP: thesquare@exclusivebooks.co.za, 011 784 5416
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March 5th, 2010 by Tracey
There wasn’t much room to move at the launch of Ann Bernstein’s The Case for Business in Developing Economies at Exclusive Books’ Hyde Park branch on Thursday. Media and guests filled all the spaces between the shelves.
Penguin’s Alison Lowry welcomed guests, particularly the contingent of young, up-and-coming British publishers who are visiting South Africa to explore the industry – the 2009 UKYPE finalists, budding businesspersons in their own right. She called them the “most intriguing entrepreneurial brains in British publishing” and hoped they would learn much and enjoy their trip. Lowry then introduced guest speaker Bobby Godsell, Chairman of Business Leadership South Africa.
The UKYPE finalists
Godsell began by stating, “This book is a very important contribution to a very important debate”. He provided two reasons for this, saying the book is “a head-on, feisty response to the sentiment of anti-business” that prevails in certain sectors of African thinking; and that “it repeats strong challenges to the business community” about being good corporate citizens. Acknowledging Bernstein with a smile, Godsell stated that she “has never been shy to speak the truth to power”.
Godsell told how The Case for Business in Developing Economies is based on Bernstein’s South African experiences, but that it “also presents some good lessons for other developing economies”. He ended his speech with a challenge to the gathered crowd: “Let’s have the debate about what South African society should expect of its business community. And the business community should in turn be clear about what they can and cannot deliver – they are not Father Christmas, they’re here to produce goods and services in a profitable way honestly and by doing business that helps to build the nation. It’s not a debate about the state versus the market. We need a business community that has good South African values, we need a politics that can engage with those values and then we’ll have a smart state regulating a smart market – and what a good place that will be”.
Taking the mic, Bernstein touched on key ideas from the book, which include the question of the role of business in both just and unjust societies. She said that in the book she tries to “construct a developing country perspective on business and its social role”.
Bernstein acknowledged that companies around the world are being pressurised to do more to demonstrate what benefits they provide society, in addition to simply doing business. She said that one of the prevailing ideas is that the profit-making entity needs to redeem itself through “good work”; to pay reparations against the fact of its existence. She said there is now a need to restore the balance; for “the debate to take place within a much more comprehensive understanding of what just doing business actually contributes”, both directly and indirectly.
Citing India as a lesson for many in what a developing economy can accomplish, Bernstein said her book is in favour of the enterprise and the corporation. However, she was quick to clarify this statement: “I am not a business fundamentalist arguing that the business of business is only business. In the book much attention is paid to what else business and business leadership should be doing”.
In conclusion – and to applause – Bernstein stated that businesses need to “stop apologising for their existence, and stand up for what they do every day”.
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February 22nd, 2010 by Tracey
Penguin Books and Exclusive Books take pleasure in inviting you to meet Ann Bernstein at the launch of her book, The Case for Business in Developing Economies.
Bobby Godsell, chairman of Business Leadership South Africa, will introduce the author. We look forward to seeing you there!
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February 19th, 2010 by Tracey
South Africa-born, Canada-based Richard Poplak, author of Ja, No Man! and The Sheikh’s Batmobile, returns to the SA pop culture beat with this investigation of the of the Die Antwoord phenomenon, presented for his Canadian audience:
Over the course of the past ten days or so, the band have been propelled by the likes of Boing Boing, Twitter, Pitchfork, Reuters, et al into the very maw of Fame 3.0. As lead rapper Waddy, a.k.a. Ninja, puts it: “Look at me now! All over the interweb.” Indeed, only two weeks ago, Ninja and his sidekicks Yo-landi “Rich Bitch” Vi$$er and the flabby DJ Hi-Tek were paying dues; now they’re rolling in nunchaku. For their international fans, Die Antwoord are exotic, furious, and, most importantly, new. But what their lyrics mean — or what they stand for precisely — no one in Brooklyn or Paris or São Paulo can say.
Ninja is, at first glance, your typical white trash rapper. He wears his hoodie low; his rangy body is marked with crude tattoos. It takes a second or two to realize that Run-D.M.C. were playing Applebee’s buffets by the time they were of Ninja’s vintage: he is closer to middle age than middle school. He raps in a scattershot mixture of English and Afrikaans; his accent is unfathomable. His lyrics reference the minutely specific to the hip-hop generic: “If you don’t like funerals, Ninja says don’t kick sand in his face,” recalls a South African peanut-butter commercial from the ’80s; “too hot to handle, to cold to hold,” fist-bumps vintage MC Hammer. The clue to Die Antwoord’s raison d’être hides in the intro of their astonishing debut album $O$, where Ninja informs us that, “I represent South African culture. In this place, you get a lot of different things…Blacks. Whites. Coloureds. English. Afrikans. Xhosa. Zulu. Watookal. I’m like all these different people, fucked into one person.” Then Ms. Vi$$er pipes in, dismissing him with a high-pitched “Whateva, man.”
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Photo courtesy Watkykjy
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February 15th, 2010 by Tracey
Strange things have happened and stranger will happen still but, no-one can deny that author Raj Patel has certainly had an odd few weeks of late. After the hugely successful debut of his new book, The Value of Nothing, some in India have started calling him “Maitreya” – aka, the Messiah! Alison Flood chatted to Patel about his book and his newfound, erm, divine status:
Im not averse to a sneaky bit of author-worship: sobbing quietly to myself as I make my way around the Keats-Shelley house in Rome, pilgrimaging to Hampstead to see where my hero fell in love with Fanny Brawne. I might spend time digging around the internet to make sure Ive read everything Mary Stewart has ever written, and seen every interview shes ever done. But even I have never gone so far as to deify any of my literarycrushes.Raj Patel, author of the recent The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy,never expected it to happen to him either. He was first bemused and then astounded at the flood of emails hes been receiving in the last few weeks, asking him whether he is Maitreya – the Messiah by any other name – a leader who will “inspire humanity to see itself as one family, and create a civilisation based on sharing, economic and social justice, and global cooperation”. Some believers even flew from Detroit to San Francisco to see him doing a book reading.
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Image courtesy the Guardian
December 4th, 2009 by Tracey
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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