SA’s best-known literary festival has a new director and promises more than 80 sessions with more than 100 recently published authors from May 19-21 2023, when the charming town of Franschhoek will be transformed into a book lovers’ paradise.
Among those who will be at the Franschhoek Literary Festival is Jonny Steinberg, whose controversial Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage, is one of the most anticipated reads of 2023. Based on previously undiscovered material, it is described as a “shattering, revelatory account of a relationship that shaped SA’s journey to freedom”. The book will be published just weeks before the festival starts.
The line-up of local and international authors includes Zimbabwe’s award-winning Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, with the final instalment of her trilogy, The Quality of Mercy; Pie-Pacifique Kabalira-Uwase whose book Witnessing recounts how he survived the Rwandan genocide, ended up as a car guard in Durban, and then enrolled at university and received a Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship; award-winning British writer, Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Genius of Harold Fry series); Sihle Khumalo (Milk the Beloved Country); and SA queen of literary crime Margie Orford. Comedian, TV writer and performer Ruby Wax will join live via Zoom from her home in England, to talk about her latest book on mental health, I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was.
Dominique Botha will talk with Heather Clark (via Zoom) about her biography of Sylvia Plath, a genius who has been reduced to clichés and inaccurate readings of her work because of the tragedy of her suicide, and how Clark’s Red Comet — The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath authoritatively corrects misrepresentations about her life.
It is no mean feat to organise the festival programme, given that 41% of South Africans own fewer than 10 books, according to a survey by the Paper Manufacturers Association of SA (Pamsa).
“Our market is very small, which makes it difficult to attract big names,” says festival director Elitha van der Sandt. “But it helps that Franschhoek is such an appealing destination and that some authors, like Rachel Joyce, have a real interest in visiting SA. The other challenge is attracting writers who appeal to our audience. When it comes to local authors, we look at diversity and what’s topical. With elections coming up in 2024, this year’s programme brings the state of SA into sharp focus.”
Thought leaders such as Adriaan Basson and Ferial Haffajee will explore the future of SA beyond the elections with Songezo Zibi (Manifesto: A New Vision for South Africa), Prince Mashele (The Outsider) and Pieter du Toit (The ANC Billionaires). Marina Cantacuzino, author of Forgiveness: An Exploration, will have a conversation with former public protector Thuli Madonsela about forgiveness and the power of restorative narratives.
Tony Leon will be in conversation with BBC correspondent Andrew Harding and historian Irina Filatova about the Russia-Ukraine war. Harding’s third book, A Small, Stubborn Town — Life, Death and Defiance in Ukraine, tells the story of how a small group of Ukrainian fighters and civilians in the farming town of Vosnezensk took an heroic stand against Putin’s invaders in March 2022.
Perhaps because of our confessional culture, memoirs are as popular as ever. Lester Kiewit will discuss life on the margins with Chase Rhys, whose book Misfit: Stories vannie anne kant is a collection of reworked columns and short prose in Kaaps, and Welcome Mandla Lishivha whose Boy On The Run is a memoir of growing up queer in an SA township.
Melinda Ferguson will run a two-hour live-writing memoir workshop. Koketso Sachane will discuss the art of self-narrative with Ferguson (Bamboozled) and Herman Lategan (Hoerkind, soon to be published in English), and what it feels like to reveal everything to the world.
Joy Watson will talk about mental health with two memoirists who have conquered crisis and substance abuse: Sara-Jayne Makwala King (Mad Bad Love: And How the Things We Love Can Nearly Kill Us) and Pamela Power (My Year of Getting Shit-Faced: How I Tried and Failed to Give Up Alcohol and Learned the Joys of Moderation).
Endurance cyclist Grant Lottering (Riding Life) will recount inspirational stories of resilience and his return from the brink of death after a crash in the Alps. Michele Magwood will be in discussion with former MP and diplomat Melanie Verwoerd about her memoir Never Waste a Good Hysterectomy, a raw, and compelling account of her surgery and its extraordinary emotional aftermath.
Danielle Weakley explores the magic of reanimating female histories with Joanne Joseph (Children of Sugarcane, SA Book Awards winner 2022) and Laila Manack, whose debut novel, Sisters of the Circus, is a wondrous tale of Indian sisters who become trapeze artists after being kidnapped and sold to the circus at four years old.
A key component of the festival is Franschhoek Reading, a community literacy initiative that has made a significant contribution to the reading life of children in the valley. It has established libraries for local schools that had none, as well as training and paying the salaries for assistant school librarians. “The goal is to one day have those children visiting the festival as adults who have grown up with a love for reading,” Van der Sandt says.
“From 15 to 19 May we are hosting a reading festival that will have grade 7s from the schools in the areas competing against each other. The enthusiasm for this event is demonstrating how the availability of books is making a wonderful difference in the lives of these children. Next year we aim to have high school kids competing too.”
On the thorny issue of audience diversity, Van der Sandt says growing audiences is a slow and painful process for any book festival organiser. “Franschhoek is an upmarket venue, and the festival has a loyal following, so we can’t change that. The Franschhoek Champagne Festival has a 70% black audience, but we cannot assume that the same audience will attend our festival.
“What we have done is introduce new elements to the festival to help grow our audience. This year, poet Malika Ndlovu has brought together six Cape Town-based storytellers for Words Fly Under Night Skies on the Saturday night, an evening of word and sound, which we are excited about. We also want to attract younger audiences and have introduced much more poetry this year to appeal to them.”
It is a positive sign that tickets to the festival are selling quickly. Van der Sandt expects about 4,000 visitors, which is a very reasonable number. She has no plans to find bigger venues outside the picturesque town because that would ruin the intimate, buzzing atmosphere of the event.
She is confident that the festival has components that will appeal to the intellectual curiosity of all book lovers, from traumatic and painful stories to ones that are lighthearted and fun, as well as many opportunities for engagement between authors and readers. There is plenty to see and do in Franschhoek, which makes this an autumn event worth having on your calendar.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.