Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 13

“Violence and tenderness” – Ashraf Jamal reviews Green Lion

A  review of Green Lion by the inimitable Ashraf Jamal in Business Day. So grateful for the profoundly sympathetic and thoughtful reading.

“It is the mortal coil that enfolds all of us which Rose-Innes conveys with breathtakingly incisive and evocative prose … It is the strange mix of violence and tenderness which gives Rose-Innes’s novel its great power … Green Lion is the author’s finest novel to date … Amid the deluge of forgettable stories caught up in a history of trauma, crime, dystopia, revenge, liberation, gratuitous misery and facile levity, Rose-Innes’s Green Lion stands as a solitary and shadowy work of genius.

Davis Meltzer: artist of vintage-future realms, fantastic and functional

A while ago, I had to seek permission to use the cover image from a 1971 science-fiction story collection (to illustrate an essay of mine on JG Ballard*). It was quite hard to track down the home address of the artist, Davis Meltzer, now 85 and long out of the public eye, but I did, and a few days ago I received his gracious go-ahead in a letter from Pennsylvania.

In the process I found examples of his work online: wonderfully lurid and fantastical vintage sci-fi stuff, but also lots of the skilful, satisfying (at least to me) and somehow optimistic technical illustrations that he did for National Geographic back in the day – cutaway diagrams of undersea submersibles, volcanoes, bird flight patterns, weather systems, and rocket ships from the golden age of space exploration. All that good stuff.

Thank you, Mr Meltzer, for the memory trip, and for an image that will greatly enrich my short piece, itself a nostalgic homage to an old love affair with Science Fiction.

Here’s a rare article about the artist: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/…/the-forgotten-space-artist-who…/

*Shortly to be published by UCT Press in the collection “Reading Culture in South Africa”, edited by Alexandra Dodd, Imraan Coovadia and Cóilín Parsons.

Nineveh joins the club of recent SA novels in translation

For International Translation Day / St Jerome’s Feast Day, BooksLive

have done an interesting round-up of recent South African books in translation, including a nod to Nineveh’s French and Spanish incarnations.

South African authors are in high demand overseas, especially in Europe but also increasingly in China and Japan.

Read the full post here.

In conversation with the wonderful writer Leila Aboulela,...

In conversation with the wonderful writer Leila Aboulela, deftly facilitated by editor/critic Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival at Charleston this last weekend. We discussed the impact the Caine Prize for African Writing has had on each of our writing lives, and our latest novels. A pleasure to engage with such fine speakers and thinkers. 

“Ninive” scuttles into Spanish with new translation and funky, quirky cover

“Entren, entren, infesten, invadan denme, una razon para estar aqui!”

I’m thrilled to reveal the cover for the new Spanish-language edition of my novel Niniveh (Ninive). Publisher Almadia have done a spectacular job, producing something unsettling, sweet and creep-crawlingly appealing. It shares a family resemblance with the South African cover but is also entirely its own thing. What’s fun about it is the surprise: the mauve dustjacket has a section cut out of it, so the green cover peeks through … and when you lift the top cover, the beetle transforms into butterfly/hair. I’m very proud to be launching this in Mexico at the Oaxaca International Book Fair in October.

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Small Wonder: Leila Aboulela and I consider the Caine Prize

This Saturday, 26 Sept, I’m very happy to be attending the Small Wonder Short Story Festival in Charleston (near Lewes, E Sussex). I’ll be discussing the the Caine Prize for African Writing with author Leila Aboulela in a discussion chaired by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (editor, critic and Caine Prize board member).

The Caine Prize, launched in 2000, highlights the richness and diversity of African writing, focusing on the short story. Leila Aboulela won the first Caine Prize. Her new novel, The Kindness of Enemies, is published this August. Henrietta Rose-Innes won the Prize in 2008.

The full festival programme  runs 23-27 Sept.

Moby-Dick, complete and unabridged, coming to the Southbank

Yesterday we had our first rehearsal for a 4-day reading of the unabridged Moby-Dick, which takes place at the Southbank Centre, London, on Oct 1-4. There’s an enormous crew of readers (including some amazing writers), salty dogs and new recruits, press-ganged by The Special Relationship (“the polymath of literary evenings”). Check ‪#‎mobydicklive‬ on twitter for updates, whale pix, M-D quotes, nautical jokes etc.

Nature and Imagination at the Goethe Institut

Some photos of our Goethe-Institut Johannesburg event on 15 September, part of their Literary Crossroads series. I’m with Angela Makholwa, chatting about “Nature and the Imagination in fiction” … and everything in between. A handsome audience! Pics courtesy of the Goethe Institut.

Literary Crossroads is a new series of talks where South African writers meet colleagues from all over the continent and from the African diaspora to discuss trends, topics and themes prevalent in their literatures today. The series is curated by Pumla Dineo Gqola and Indra Wussow.

Mukherjee, Gale and I pass time at Open Book

Tomorrow evening at Open Book Cape Town I have the pleasure of being on a panel with two of the most brilliant writers and delightful people that I know:

4 Years On: Patrick Gale, Neel Mukherjee and Henrietta Rose-Innes were all at Open Book 1. Mervyn Sloman prods their memories and talks then and now.

09/09/2015, Fugard Studio, 18.00 – 19.00, R45

Our topic is vague but that is certainly for the best: it will encourage my copanellists to digress, which I guarantee will be a treat for us all. Come along.

See my events page for more upcoming appearances.

Talking “Nature and Imagination” at the Goethe Institute, 15 Sept

On 15th Sept, together with writer Angela Makholwa, I will be taking part in a reading and discussion on “Nature and Imagination” in Johannesburg at the Goethe-Institut. This is part of their Literary Crossroads series of talks, where “South African writers meet colleagues from all over the continents and from the African diaspora to discuss trends, topics and themes prevalent in their literatures today.” The series is curated by PumlaDineo Gqola and Indra Wussow.