Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 3

JRB: the conversation issue

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The new issue of the Johannesburg Review of Books is online now. The January “Conversation Issue” includes my interview with Gail Fincham for the South African Literary magazine Tydskrif vir Letterkunde – we chat my writing and forthcoming novel, Stone Plant. (In English)

Read the full interview here.

I value a destabilising sense of estrangement in writing; among other things, it is one way to approach writing about the non-human. It’s one reason why science fiction has always had value for me. The short stories I’ve been writing recently, and the new novel, edge towards the speculative, without delving into outright fantasy. I’ve often said that the space I’m interested in exploring, in classic fantasy terms, is not exactly Narnia, and perhaps not even The Wood Between the Worlds, but perhaps the wardrobe: that space of possibility, where we have the first inkling that a break in perceived reality is imminent.

Twenty years of the Caine Prize: the collection

To celebrate twenty years of the Caine Prize, Africa’s premier literary competition, an anthology of short stories featuring all twenty winners so far has been published by New Internationalist. It contains my story ‘Poison’, as well as work by upcoming and leading African writers Leila Aboulela, Helon Habila, Binyavanga Wainana, Yvonne Owuor, Brian Chikwava, Mary Watson, Monica Arac de Nyeko, E.C. Osondu, Olufemi Terry, NoViolet Bulawayo, Rotimi Babatunde, Tope Folarin and Okwiri Oduor.

Now entering its twentieth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa’s leading literary prize, and is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere.

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Caine Prize for African Writing–often referred to as the “African Booker Prize”–this collection showcases the winning short stories of African writers from the past 20 years and reflect the vast range of modern African experience.

You can purchase it here.

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Animalia Paradoxa: evocative and affecting

Book blogger David Hebblethwaite has written a generous review of my collection of short stories, Animalia Paradoxa, which you can read here: “An evocative and affecting collection of stories. It leaves me keen to read more.”

Animalia Paradoxa is available from Boiler House Press.

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An interview with Gail Fincham

I recently was interviewed by literary scholar Gail Fincham for South African literary journal Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about my writing and influences, past and present. You can access it here.

I value a destabilising sense of estrangement in writing; among other things, it is one way to approach writing about the non-human. It’s one reason why science fiction has always had value for me. The short stories I’ve been writing recently, and the new novel, edge towards the speculative, without delving into outright fantasy. I’ve often said that the space I’m interested in exploring, in classic fantasy terms, is not exactly Narnia, and perhaps not even The Wood Between the Worlds, but perhaps the wardrobe: that space of possibility, where we have the first inkling that a break in perceived reality is imminent.

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Stone Plant taster at Bloody Parchment

I debuted a short extract from my work-in-progress novel Stone Plant in Cape Town at the annual South African Halloween Horrorfest, as part of the Bloody Parchment readings by local horror authors. It was gruesome … 

Here’s a taster of the taster:

In the layers furthest from the sun, the skeletons of old, strange animals swam, their giant forms suspended in rock. Flotsam from some murky inland sea, rendered down to silt. The earth down there was sour and starved of oxygen; more recent occupants turned their backs on it. A little higher, there were inscrutable things: acres of char from gigantic fires that had left nothing else behind. If you put your face close, you would still smell the stink of singed feathers. A ring of bleached jackal skeletons, laid out as offerings to some forgotten god. Complicated. Clues to a million murders. Enough to keep generations of detectives busy with their magnifying glasses, their fingerprint dust.

Several graves deep, a woman lay curled, hands up by her chin, thoughtful, listening to the ruckus of the years. Her necklace of eggshell beads was intact, although their string was gone. She was very, very old.

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Read “Animalia Paradoxa” – free story

My short story “Animalia Paradoxa” was featured as the “weekend read” by For Books’ Sake, a site that champions writing by women.

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This is the title story of my new collection from Boiler House Books, which can be purchased here.

A virus inflames a woman with mortal desire; a colonial naturalist seeks an impossible specimen; invisible violence stalks a safari and a man out walking enters into a strange shadow dance with a prizefighter. Ranging from taut human drama to phantasmagoria, these stories make rich and strange connections – between ancient and new, human and animal, Africa and Europe, reality and dream. Taken together, in prose of great precision and beauty, the stories in Animalia Paradoxa map the complexities of the human specimen, in all its troubling glory. This is fiction of the highest quality, from one of South Africa’s foremost novelists.

Animalia Paradoxa emerges from its shell

My new collection of short stories, Animalia Paradoxa, is out now from Norwich-based Boiler House Press, as part of their exciting first fiction offering: great new books from Ben Borek, Ruby Cowling and Jonathan Gibbs complete the beautifully designed set.

Buy them now direct from Boiler House ( international shipping available).

The stories have never appeared before in one volume available outside South Africa. Some have previously appeared in my South African collection, Homing, while some have not been collected before.

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Stories of Ourselves

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My story “Promenade” is included in this Cambridge University Press schools anthology, which I certainly wouldn’t have minded having at school. It’s a very nice eclectic selection:

The anthology contains short stories written in English by authors from many different countries and cultures, including Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Christina Rossetti, Janet Frame, Jhumpa Lahiri, Romesh Gunesekera, Segun Afolabi, Margaret Atwood and many others. Classic writers appear alongside new voices from around the world in a stimulating collection with broad appeal.

‘Sanctuary’ for free on your phone

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You can now read my Safari Gothic short story ‘Sanctuary’, and a huge trove of other downloadable e-books of all kinds, for free on your phone on the SimplyE app. It’s provided by the The New York Public Library, but you don’t need to be a library member, or in the States, to access it. (Use the search function at the top to find what you’re looking for – I found the catalog main page a bit confusing at first.)

‘Sanctuary’ was the runner-up in the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award, and was first published byComma Press in the BBC prize collection.

Cape Town, lions and more

An interview – from several months ago now – with The Booktrail, on my home town and my novels.

Every book creates its own sensory landscape; I think some writers are more attuned to certain senses as well. I’ve always thought of myself as a very visual writer, and Nineveh is full of lush images of glinting beetles. It’s a book, in part, about architecture and the built environment, and the visual contrast between the smooth, high, white walls of the luxury estate and the colourful, teeming, chaotic insects was important. With Green Lion, I was trying to tap into the sense-world of a big predator: there’s a lot of earthy description of odour. My new novel, which is about the plant world, has some interesting (biotoxic) taste sensations running through it. I’ll have to do a touchy-feely book next.