TNSH Signing at the CTBF
I’m scheduled to sign copies of The New Suffolk Hymnbook at the Jacana stand during the Cape Town Book Fair, on Sunday 17 June at 1pm. Here is the poster Jacana has designed to promote the stint:
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Sound Bites
by Chris Walton
Published by Jacana.
reviewed by Ben Oswest
This review originally ran, in edited form, in the Sunday Independent. Here’s the link (subscribers only):
And here’s the review in full:
At first glance, this enjoyable Gothic sex farce dolled up as a murder mystery appears to be the product of pure indulgence on its publisher’s part: for what have Zurich, Switzerland and its inhabitants during the years of the First World War to do with South Africa today?
But one of the secret pleasures of Chris Walton’s Sound Bites is lifting evidence from its pages to fit a theory about its implausible release here: the theory that South African culture – the whole shebang, its producers, consumers, bureaucrats and police – has matured to the point where incidental voices singing unfamiliar notes are made room for, because of a general agreement that the local milieu – a milieu shaped mainly by voices more pleasing to those with a nationalist bent – offers everyone some agency, a small ledge on the mossy cliff on which to trill.
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Henrietta Rose-Innes introduces The New Suffolk Hymnbook
As promised, here is the text of the speech introducing The New Suffolk Hymnbook that left me rather flustered last Wednesday. Thanks again, Henrietta.
Notes on The New Suffolk Hymnbook by Henrietta Rose-Innes
Some months ago, Gus Ferguson gave me a copy of he New Suffolk Hymnbook, saying that he thought I would like it. I was a little nervous (what if I didn’t? what would I say to Gus?), and for a long time put it aside unread. But every now and then I would glance at its dreamy, sub-marine cover. Eventually I took it with me to a North Sea island, where, trapped in a heat wave in a suitably otherworldly state of mind, I read it. And was delighted to discover writing as dreamlike and compelling as the angels and sea creatures that float on the cover. I never did tell Gus what I thought of the book, and so I was glad when Ben gave me the chance to do so by asking me to introduce him tonight.
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Denis Hirson to Read at the Labia
South African writer and poet Denis Hirson will read from his 1986 novel, The House Next Door to Africa (David Philip/New Africa Books) at Cape Town’s Labia Theatre on Wednesday, 2 August, at 6 p.m.
Clarke’s Bookshop will be on hand with a selection of Hirson’s books for sale and signing. He is also the author of two memoirs, I Remember King Kong (The Boxer) and We Walk Straight So You Better Get Out the Way (both Jacana titles).
RSVP to Morgan Vesty by 28 July: morgan@newafricabooks.co.za, (021) 674 4136.
From the reviewers:
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The New Suffolk Hymnbook Considered
Today’s Sunday Independent ran a review, by the South African poet Ingrid de Kok, of The New Suffolk Hymnbook (Jacana/Snail Press, 2006), which was based on her introduction of the novel at its 19 June Cape Town Book Fair launch. The review is available online to the Independent’s subscribers only - click here for the story if you subscribe - but here is the full text of de Kok’s original speech:
The New Suffolk Hymnbook Considered
by Ingrid de Kok
It is a pleasure to be participating in the launch of The New Suffolk Hymnbook. I read Ben Oswest’s novel some years ago in manuscript form, and thought then that it was a startling and unique achievement. On a second reading, I feel even more intrigued and impressed. I can’t pretend to claim that I entirely understand this radical book - but I think one of the purposes of the book is to confront the very idea of “entire understanding” . At the same time as it engages us every step of its way, the book questions the solidity of its own surfaces and the nature of its own evidence. It dislodges expectation and leaves one half knowing, half confused, as if in a dream whose meaning is elusive but full of portents.
