Penguin SA

A young man makes three journeys that take him through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way – including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge – he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man’s best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life.

A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man’s search for love, and a place to call home.

“The Lover”, one of the three parts that make up In a Strange Room, has been chosen for “The O Henry Award” – the only annual award, in the United States, given to short stories of exceptional merit.

About the author

Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor and The Impostor. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. The Impostor won the 2008 University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing, and was shortlisted for the 2009 M-Net Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the African Region. He lives in Cape Town.

Book details

• In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143026273
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Penguin kicks off 2010 with this updated version of Jenny Crwys-Williams’ In the Words of Nelson Mandela – now also available in a special hardback gift edition.

Through his words and deeds Nelson Mandela has been embraced by the whole world as a symbol of courage, hope and reconciliation. In these collections, his comments on subjects as diverse as humanity, racism, friendship, oppression and freedom provide an insight into the man and all he stands for. By turns moving, generous, humorous and sad, these books eloquently convey his warmth and dignity. It will be both an inspiration and a source of strength for all who read them.

On Favourite Things:

Koeksisters are my favourite: in 1941 I was paid £2 a month and I reserved 10/- each weekend for koeksisters.

On His Last Day:

On my last day I want to know that those who remain behind will say: ‘The man who lies here has done his duty for his country and his people.’

On Regrets:

My greatest regret in life is that I never became the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

On His Marriage to Graça Machel, 18 July 1998:

My wife has put a spring in me and made me full of hope.

On the Press:

A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy.

On Humanity:

It is a fact of the human condition that each shall, like a meteor – a mere brief passing moment in time and space – flit across the human stage and pass out of existence.

About the editor

Jennifer Crwys-Williams is a well-known South African journalist and broadcaster at Talk Radio 702. She is based in Johannesburg and is the author of The Penguin Dictionary of South African Quotations, South African Despatches – Two Centuries of the Best in South African Journalism, South Africa’s Ten Best, and I Want Love in South Africa, Dear God.

Book details

• In the Words of Nelson Mandela edited by Jenny Cryws-Williams
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143026037
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• In the Words of Nelson Mandela (Hardcover) edited by Jenny Cryws-Williams
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143026020
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Good news for all those who are interested in Spud – the Movie: the film adaptation of John van de Ruit’s Spud is 90 percent financed and filming is set to begin next in KwaZulu Natal next year, according to IOL Tonight:

With about 90 percent of the R41-million budget now raised for the planned film version of John van de Ruit’s first book in his hit Spud series, the film shoot is set for early next year in Durban and at Michaelhouse in the KZN Midlands.

Arts editor Billy Suter caught up with the Durban-based author to chat about castings, cash flow and other news about the film and the books.

Whoever would have thought, just a few years ago, that the ongoing story of a teenage boy’s adventures during his years at a boarding school in the KZN Midlands would ignite the imagination of so many?

• Read the complete article

Book details

• Spud: Learning to Fly by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143025955
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Spud: The madness continues by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143025207
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Spud by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143024842
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

The Spud Around the World Competition has just gotten bigger and you could now win a day on the Spud movie set! Get your camera and get clicking. Oh and don’t forget to include Spud – Learning to Fly in your snap!

Have you entered our Spud Around the World competition? If not, grab that camera because the prize just got bigger.

Our prize will now include a day on the Spud movie set, starring as an extra in a crowd scene, along with a Penguin Books hamper of the Spud trilogy, signed by Durban author John van der Ruit.

• Read the complete article at IOL Tonight

Book details

• Spud by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143024842
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Spud – The madness continues by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143025207
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Spud – Learning to Fly by John van de Ruit
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143025955
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

The film version of John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation – now titled, like the movie, Invictus – opens in South Africa on Dec 11. Ahead of the event, the Sunday Times’ Barry Ronge sat down with the director, Clint Eastwood:

I meet with Clint Eastwood at a gala at the presidential palace in Paris the day after President Nicolas Sarkozy had awarded him France’s most coveted prize, the Legion of Honour. It’s typical of Eastwood, however, that the next day he was up early to do interviews with journalists, which he does with great courtesy and minimum fuss.

He ambles into the room without an entourage, his hair tousled, wearing well-worn denims and sneakers, and shakes my hand. A pert young makeup artist bustles up, but he gives her a wry smile and says: “At my age, there’s not much you can do about this face.” And then we begin. It is a reminder that the really big stars show up on time, give you their full attention and say “Thank you for coming such a long way to see me” at the end of the interview.

• Complete article in the Sunday Times

*

In other news, actor Morgan Freeman, who plays Mandela in Invictus, will attend the film’s premiere in South Africa:

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman will visit South Africa to attend the local premiere for the film “Invictus,” starring Freeman as Nelson Mandela and directed by Clint Eastwood.

As part of the trip, Freeman will also support various charity initiatives around the film’s December 11th release.

• Complete article at TimesLive

Book details

• Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781848873353
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

The Sunday Independent’s Maureen Isaacson interviews Black Diamond author Zakes Mda, who responds to the accusations leveled at him in Sandile Memela’s recent letter against trends in black writing.

Here’s Mda on “not being a praise singer”:

BLACK DIAMOND, Zakes Mda’s new novel, presents an acid portrait of a society in moral decay.

In an interview in Joburg, Mda says he is happy that his viciousness is apparent; subject determines style, so the novel is accessible. In this it differs from The Heart of Redness (2002), The Madonna of Excelsior (2004) and The Whale Caller (2005).

Ways of Dying (1997), written at a time when people had begun to run out of time to mourn their dead and were forced to hire a professional mourner, necessitated Mda’s greatest creation, Toloki, who reappears in Cion, Mda’s penultimate novel, set in the US.

Mda’s refusal to sing praise songs to the powerful has been a consistent theme, which he traces back to his 1978 play We Shall Sing for the Fatherland, which he says foresaw the current crisis of corruption, depicted so clearly in The Heart of Redness.

In response to Memela’s letter accusing Mda, among other South African writers, of being “black racists”, he says: “It is racial arrogance to say that because I am black I can’t criticise black people. He (Memela) is being racist for criticising me because I am black. Only a fool would read that book (Black Diamond) and accuse me of being conservative.

• Complete article in the Sunday Independent

Book details

• Black Diamond by Zakes Mda
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143026198
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

NEWSFLASH: Author John Carlin will be in South Africa from 7- 11 December to promote the big-screen release of Invictus!

This paperback edition of Invictus is a film tie-in version of John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy. The film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, will be released nationwide on 11 December 2009.

As the day of the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup dawned, and the Springboks faced New Zealand’s all-conquering All Blacks, more was at stake than a sporting trophy.

When Nelson Mandela appeared wearing a Springbok jersey and led the all-white, Afrikaner-dominated team in singing South Africa’s new national anthem, he conquered white South Africa.

Mandela’s genius was to transform that which divided black and white South Africa into a force for good. The green jersey of South Africa’s Springbok rugby team, which whites loved and blacks saw as a detested symbol of racial oppression, became the instrument around which Mandela chose to heal ancient wounds, unite the country and prevent a war. When Mandela stepped onto the field at Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, on the 24th of June 1995 wearing the green and gold jersey, he captured the hearts of white South Africans, forging an unimaginably powerful patriotic bond with their black compatriots.

Invictus tells the extraordinary human story of how that moment became possible. It shows how a sport, once the preserve of South Africa’s Afrikaans-speaking minority, came to unify the new rainbow nation, and tells of how – just occasionally – something as simple as a game really can help people to rise above themselves and see beyond their differences. It is a story with the power to make grown men cry; a thrilling account of how the most charismatic statesman of our time deployed his wits and charm and generous vision to pull off this most unlikely of miracles.

About the author

John Carlin grew up in Argentina and in the UK and lived in South Africa from 1989 to 1995 as the Independent’s correspondent. He has also lived in Nicaragua, Mexico and Washington, writing for The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Times and The New York Times, among other papers, and worked for the BBC. He now lives in Barcelona, where he writes for El Pais.

Book details

• Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781848873353
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Penguin Books is delighted to announce a new novel from the pen of Mark Behr

When Michiel Steyn returns to the family farmstead in South Africa for his mother’s funeral, he has spent close to half his lifetime abroad.

But even after fifteen years absence, neither Michiel nor those he left behind have truly come to terms with his terrible flight from the farm they called Paradise. As Michiel submits himself to the rituals of mourning and remembrance in the small town and on the land where he became a man, all that has lain undisturbed for years is brought to light.

A father’s implacable fury and a brother’s violent death, the loss of a child, the betrayal of love and the ugly memory of the dying days of apartheid all come between the prodigal and forgiveness. Michiel finds that he must confront not only his grief for his mother’s passing but the painful truth of his own transgressions.

Elegiac and chilling, poignant and profoundly thoughtful, Kings of the Water is at once a lament both personal and political, and a meditation on the potency of reconciliation.

About the author

Mark Behr is a Tanzanian-born writer who grew up in South Africa. His first published novel, The Smell of Apples (1995), appeared first in Afrikaans in 1993 (Die Reuk van Appels). The book garnered significant recognition in the form of the Eugène Marais Prize, the M-Net Award, the CNA Literary Debut Award and The Art Seidenbaum Award from the Los Angeles Times. The Smell of Apples has been adapted for the screen for release in the UK in 2011. Kfir Yefet is credited with the screenplay; actors Gillian Anderson and Julian McMahon are given as the leads.

Behr’s second novel, Embrace (2000) was short-listed for The Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Encore Award in the United Kingdom.

Behr has also written short stories and essays and is currently the Associate Professor of World Literature and Fiction Writing at the College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work is extensively translated and has received awards from the Los Angeles Times, the British Society of Authors and the South African Academy of Sciences and the Arts. He travels regularly between the USA and South Africa.

Book details

• Kings of the Water by Mark Behr
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780349113708
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a classic, must-read, perspective-altering book. Achebe wrote it over fifty years ago and it’s as provocative today as it was then.

In February, Achebe latest work will arrive in South Africa: The Education of a British-Protected Child, a “collection of old and recent essays that piece together the arc of his literary life”.

The new book has already attracted notice in many parts of the world; here’s a great summarizing story from Reuters:

Chinua Achebe, the grandfather of modern African literature, first began telling stories as a means to reaching the truth. Fiction, he knew, could sometimes strike deeper than real life.

More than 50 years ago Achebe wrote “Things Fall Apart,” a novel about an African tribe's fatal brush with British colonialism in the 1800s that told the story of colonialism for the first time from an African perspective.

Written in English, “Things Fall Apart” told a world audience about the upheaval that Africa had endured. It was translated into 50 languages and sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe
  EAN: 9781846142598
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Penguin Books is delighted to bring you the news that Ceridwen Dovey has been included in the prestigious “5 Under 35″ fiction selection at the United States’ National Book Foundation, for her debut novel, Blood Kin.

The book, which won both the University of Johannesburg Prize and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize in 2008, and has featured on numerous shortlists around the world since, keeps going from strength to strength:

Five young fiction writers will be recognized by the National Book Foundation at the “5 Under 35” celebration at PowerHouse Arena in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn on Monday, November 16, announced Harold Augenbraum, the executive director of the National Book Foundation.

The 2009 5 Under 35 Honorees Are:

Ceridwen Dovey, Blood Kin (Viking, 2008)
Selected by Rachel Kushner, 2008 Fiction Finalist for Telex from Cuba

C. E. Morgan, All the Living (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009)
Selected by Christine Schutt, 2004 Fiction Finalist for Florida

Lydia Peelle, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
(HarperCollins, 2009)
Selected by Salvatore Scibona, 2008 Fiction Finalist for The End

Karen Russell, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
(Vintage, 2006)
Selected by Dan Chaon, 2001 Fiction Finalist for Among the Missing

Josh Weil, The New Valley (Grove Press, 2009)
Selected by Lily Tuck, 2004 Fiction Winner for The News from Paraguay

• Read more about “5 Under 35″ fiction at the National Book Foundation

Book details

• Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143025306
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!