Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 4

Film deal for Nineveh

News! I’m really happy to announce a film deal for my novel Nineveh, with the fabulous Fortune Cookie Theatre Company. More details to follow in time, but I can say they have some brilliant ideas for bringing the bugs to life.[image error]

Unboxing the Caine

I wrote a mini blogpost in the run-up to the The Caine Prize for African Writing.

There were 133 writers there on my carpet, and maybe five times as many others who’d helped them, in small or large ways, to be there.

Read the full post here[image error].

Onjerika wins the Caine Prize

With the fabulous The Caine Prize for African Writing winner. Congratulations for her wonderful story “Fanta Blackcurrant”.

[image error]

“Concrete fragments”: an interview

I did this interview some time ago with the excellent Graham Riach; happy to see it in print now. Read the whole piece here.

In this interview, Henrietta Rose-Innes describes her practice as a short story writer, noting how it differs from that of writing novels or poetry. For Rose-Innes, the short story offers a way to capture her view of the world; that is, in sudden, intense moments, rather than in wholly narrative terms. Combining a number of short stories into a collection, Rose-Innes suggests, can offer some perspective on the plurality of contemporary South African life.

Caine Prize shortlist announced

CONGRATULATIONS Wole Talabi, Nonyelum Ekwempu, Olufunke Ogundimu Stacy Hardy and Makena Onjerika! I’m very proud to have been part of selecting this wonderful shortlist. Sifting through the entries was a pleasure from start to finish. Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa representing. Read the luminous top five stories here.

NOMMO shortlists announced

Aw, I’m really pleased about this! delighted that my Twitter experiment @FarMonolith caught some nominators’ eyes. And fabulous company on the shortlists: yay Nerine Dorman Masha du Toit Deji Olukotun Sibongile Fisher and everyone else.

Also, so nice that they include the longlists of all nominees. Some great stuff on there. As someone who’s been reading a lot of African short fiction lately (*cough* The Caine Prize for African Writing), I can tell you that the the African SpecFic renaissance is well under way.

Read the full long and shortlists here, and more coverage on Brittle Paper.

ONE WORLD on stage

Nice surprise: my story “Porcelain” is included in ONE, a staged adaption of stories from ONE WORLD: A GLOBAL ANTHOLOGY OF SHORT STORIES by students at Santa Ana College, being performed this weekend. Go check it out. 

ONE WORLD is one of the best publications I’ve been involved in; still robustly in print after 9 years, this collection has found its way all over the world and continues to send thousands of pounds in donated author royalties to Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It features stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jhumpa Lahiri and 21 other writers. You can buy it here.

Tickets on sale: FLF 2018

Good to see the Franschhoek Literary Festival 2018 programme is up and running, with tickets on sale from tomorrow. Three days, nearly 200 authors. I’ll be there with 3 events:

Fri 18 May, 10am, “What it takes to fill a page”: Darrel Bristow-Bovey will be chatting to me, Mick Herron and Claire Robertson.

Sat 19, 6pm, “It’s not about me”: I’ll be chairing a panel on biography featuring James-Brent Styan, Eric Naki and Nechama Brodie.

Sun 20, 11.30am, “The secrets of my style”: Ann Donald in discussion with me and Zinzi Clemmons.

See the full programme here.

Renaissance of the Short Story in Berlin

Berliners! I’ll be on a panel to talk about “The Renaissance of the Short Story” on 27 April, as part of Writing in Migration, Berlin’s first African book festival. More details on at http://www.interkontinental.org/wim/

ElNathan’s #BOAT at Literaturhaus Berlin

Please to be chatting to my friend and novelist Elnathan John about my writing on 25 April in Berlin. For details see here.