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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:

A friend made the dour observation recently that being on the longlist for an award is like waiting for someone to ask you to dance.

Neither she nor I was asked last night when the Sunday Times Fiction Prize longlist was winnowed from twenty-nine to a shortlist of five. The prize, at R75,000, is SA’s largest literary award.

We chaff may take consolation in this image, which I have pilfered from the Times‘ website. It’s the longlist, stacked - a frozen moment of promise.

If I was a literary bookie, meanwhile, I’d place extremely short odds on Marlene van Niekerk and Agaat to take the prize. It’s the thickest book of the bunch, close to the center. (Another friend points out that, in Agaat’s case, a translation is being judged, not an original work in English, which is quite irregular. But then again, SA’s literary politics are much like the real thing, haphazard - and what’s more, he’s on the shortlist.)

• Full Sunday Times fiction shortlist here; and non-fiction shortlist here.

Boswestblog will be on sabbatical for the rest of the month, while urgent literary and other matters are attended to.

In the interim, we present this special compilation of the “Boswestblog Top Ten” - as chosen by YT (no, not Air Togo, the Yukon Territory, or yellowTab) - for your perusal.

Peruse, peruse!

• The New Suffolk Hymnbook My novel, of course.
• The Laddy Jones Story Part One Short fiction involving Arsenal FC.
• Mandela’s Ego Reviewed by YT.
• Gasping Fish The B-blog logo.
• Notes from the Cape Town Book Fair Haiku by Gus Ferguson.
• Here Comes the Coda: Green Man & Silver Jews Prose paen by YT.
• Eid-ul-Fitr 1427, Rylands, Cape Town As reported by YT.
• Memories of the Ford Administration (Discontinued) Pertaining to YT’s youth.
• My Near West A photo-mosaic of sorts.
• Against Poets & Writers A rant of sorts.

By the time the Ford Administration (discontinued) reached the small town in the Colorado Rockies where I grew up - not Vail, reportedly the President’s favorite resort in the state, but two hours’ drive north-northwest of it - its security detail had shrunk to two, and there were barely enough cabinet men, lackeys and hangers-on in the entourage to complete a foursome.

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The last group in this series - see Flickr for captions.

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