Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 6

BookBlast taps Green Lion for Autumn

Green Lion has made it onto Book Blast’s intriguing Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds for September, taking the “Environmentalism and the New World” slot on this list of “deliciously eclectic, mind-altering reads to see us into the Autumn”.

[image error]

 

Green Lion launch in London

Some photos from the magnificent launch for the UK edition of Green Lion at Belgravia Books on 5th September. A fine time was had, and lion chocolates were savagely consumed. Thank you Aardvark Bureau!

Photos: Bethan James

London reminder: Green Lion launches next week!

Dearest Londoners! I’m launching my novel Green Lion on 5th August, and I’d love you to come. RSVP as below to Belgravia Books.[image error]

Ten things you always wanted to know about me …

To mark the publication week of the UK edition of Green Lion, Female First UK has published a little list of the “10 Things I’d Like My Readers To Know About Me” – it was fun to write![image error]

Five stars for “muscular, lyrical” Green Lion from the Telegraph

The first significant review of Green Lion in the UK is out, with a very gratifying five stars from the Telegraph (Sat 19 Aug). Lara Feigel writes:

If there is an inner lion in us all, as Rose-Innes seems to suggest , her prose – weaving between muscular and lyrical – is well-equipped to capture what this might feel like.

[image error] [image error]

Honouring Anna Politkovskaya for Amnesty

Next week, I will be taking part in the Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers Series at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. I have the great honour of reading from Anna Politkovskaya’s book Putin’s Russia. Journalist and human rights activist, Politkovsaya was a fearless opponent of the Russian president. She was assassinated in 2006, the day she was due to file a story on torture in Chechnya.

All the murders of children since 1999 in bombardments and purges remain unsolved, uninvestigated by the institutions of law and order. The infanticides have never had to stand where they belong, in the dock; Putin, that great “friend of all children”, has never demanded that they should. The Army continues to rage in Chechnya as it was allowed to at the beginning of the war, as if its operations were being conducted on a training ground empty of people.

The Amnesty series runs every day for the duration of the festival. On the 21st Aug, the theme is “Dangerous Dispatches”, writing from journalists on the frontline, and I’ll be reading alongside authors Deni Ellis Béchard and Tom Feiling.

Mon 21 Aug 5:30pm – 6:15pm Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre. FREE: Tickets available from the Box Office on the day of the event

Green Lion goes to Edinburgh

I’ll be launching the UK edition of Green Lion at the always-wonderful Edinburgh International Book Fair. I’ll be there in the week of the 20 Aug, and have several appearances lined up:

Mon 21 Aug, 17.30 – 18.15: Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers Series. Dangerous Dispatches: Henrietta with Diana Hendry and Tom Feiling, reading works from persecuted journalists. Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre. (Free event)

More than 1,236 journalists have been killed in the line of duty since 1992 – press freedom is continually under threat and reporting the news is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. Despite this, reporters and photographers continue to document human rights abuses. The writing today comes from journalists on the frontline.

20.30 – 21.30: Near and Far. Cynan Jones & Henrietta Rose-Innes discuss their novels, Green Lion and Cove. Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre.

The hero of Cove by Cynan Jones (…’one of the most talented writers in Britain’) has only his instincts and the memory of the woman who waits for him to help when he is struck by lightning while out at sea. … South African Henrietta Rose-Innes now gives us Green Lion, a masterful evocation of our fear of the wild.

Tuesday 22 Aug, 18.30 – 20.00: Green Lion: an evening of eco-lit with Henrietta Rose-Innes. Golden Hare Books. (Fringe event; free but booking recommended)

Developing on the themes of Nineveh, which considered the fragile relations between the natural world and the urban environment, Green Lion is a foray into eco-fiction, exploring questions of conservation and extinction. As well as reading from Green Lion, Henrietta will be discussing the issues raised by eco-fiction with Golden Hare bookseller Alice Tarbuck.

Green Lion: Goodreads giveaway

My publishers Aardvark Bureau and Gallic Books are giving away ten copies of my novel Green Lion, about to be released in the UK. Enter on Goodreads – giveaway ends Aug 19.

[image error]

Not the Booker – voting now on!

The fun, freewheeling, democratic and fiercely contested alternative to the Booker Prize, the Guardian’s annual “Not the Booker” prize, is open for voting, with a gigantic long list of 150 books. Green Lion is one of them. If you’ve read and enjoyed my novel, please do consider giving it a vote – it would be very much appreciated. You have to get yourself a Guardian commenter username (takes 2 minutes to sign up) and then vote for 2 books, with a very short review (100+ words). Voting, the long list and more detail here.

The deadline is 23.59 BST on Monday 7 August 2017.

To do the necessary trimming, all you have to do is cast your vote in the comments below. This can be fun, but every year dozens of votes have to be discounted because they fail to meet our simple requirements. You need to choose two books from the longlist, from two different publishers, and accompany those choices with a short review of at least one of your chosen books.

ie:

[yourusername] – Vote # 1 – [Book title only]

[yourusername] – Vote # 2 – [Book title only]

The review should be something above 100 words long … Please just make it look like you care.

Green Lion is only coming out in the UK next month, so very few British readers have seen it; I’m relying on my South African and perhaps also my French-speaking readers here!

Tremors through SA Literature

I wrote a little piece for the TLS website, about the big changes in South African literature since I first dipped my toes in it. A personal view.

The past twenty years have been an interesting time to come of age as a novelist in South Africa. In 1994, there were many confident predictions that the fall of apartheid would usher in an age of unprecedented creative freedom – an artistic blossoming. When I first entered the publishing world, we were well into the post-apartheid era, but it seemed like local literature was only just beginning to reflect, and reflect on, the changes we’d been through.