Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 8
March 6, 2017
In conversation with Brian Chikwava
I’m very pleased to be speaking at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) this coming Friday 10 March as part of the prestigious Conversations in Bloomsbury series.
I’ll be in conversation with Zimbabwean writer and musician, Brian Chikwava, talking about my novel Nineveh. “This story, set in Cape Town explores the tensions between the natural and man-made worlds; the impossibility of imposing order on an organic landscape; and the beautiful chaos of nature.”
4.30pm – 6pm, SOAS Main Building, Room 116. Free entry, drinks and snacks. See the Facebook invitation.
[image error]
February 16, 2017
Chips of Colour in the mosaic: An Interview
I recently did an interview with Michael Barron of transnational arts and culture website the Culture Trip. I talk about Nineveh, the state of South African literature, and writing in a foreign land.
Up to now, I’ve always been focused on writing about specific landscapes that I know very well – Cape Town, basically. But since moving, I’ve found this shifting; I’m less tethered to the real. The world I’m writing about in my current novel is still recognisably South Africanish, and I’ve produced a couple of short stories that are Norwichish, but everything has taken on a slightly strange, otherworldly cast, which I’m enjoying.
Read the full interview here.
February 9, 2017
“Luminous narrative ” – L’Homme au lion
Lovely words for L’Homme au lion (French edition of Green Lion) from the Charybde blog:
Henrietta Rose-Innes makes the city of Cape Town an essential figure, inhabited by the echoes of the past and magnetized by Table Mountain, where rocks, thorns and memories intertwine … a luminous narrative … enhanced by the magnetic descriptions of place, as if the pen of the writer was a sensitive nerve as well as a wide-open eye.
L’Homme au lion is available from Swiss publisher Editions Zoe, who also published Nineveh in 2014.
[image error]
February 3, 2017
Green Lion roaming: UK edition in Aug
I’m delighted to report that my novel Green Lion will be coming out in the UK in Aug from the wonderful Gallic Books / Aardvark Bureau. We’ve kept the original SA Umuzi cover, with a few small tweaks from designer Russell Stark (publicide), because it’s perfect. Excited to have it out in time to take to the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
[image error]
January 26, 2017
“The Second Law” – story listed for Galley Beggar Prize
I’m delighted to say that my short story “The Second Law” has been longlisted for the Galley Beggar short story prize. There are 13 great stories on the list, and they can all be downloaded, for a pound each, as singles from the Galley Beggar website – mine is here.
The site also carries brief interviews with me and all the other listed writers about the story, writers and writing:
This story actually has a precise origin. I was finishing Green Lion, and I’d been searching out pictures of artificial and animatronic lions. I visited an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci drawings, which featured a reconstruction of his mechanical lion. This led me to his speculative design for a perpetual-motion machine. Clever people have actually built little models of this too – obviously non-functional, but beautiful objects. I was struck by the poignancy of the desire for inexhaustible energy.
You can read the full interview here.
The shortlist will be announced tomorrow, 27 Jan 2017.
December 16, 2016
Rare magnetism -L’Homme au lion
L’Homme au lion (Green Lion, out in French from Editions Zoé) has been warmly reviewed in Le Monde. Read the full review here
Between frenzy and savagery, the great South African city is at the heart of the new novel by Henrietta Rose-Innes … Of a rare magnetism, new proof that Henrietta Rose-Innes is today one of the most exciting South African authors. And that it is urgent to translate the rest of her work.
[image error]
December 14, 2016
Why not, beloveds? Nínive review
A year after its publication in Mexico, La Jornada Seminal reports that Nínive (the beautiful Spanish-language edition of Nineveh from Editorial Almadía) is “a novel that deserves the fervent praise of JM Coetzee”:
Rose-Innes is a teacher in the art of constructing not only credible but endearing characters, who we long to meet again after a break in reading …
No matter how noxious they may be to the rest of the world, Katya is sure that, like herself, the beasts are not there by chance, that there must be a proper place for them, where they can be useful, even appreciated; and why not, beloveds?
[image error]
December 13, 2016
Addressing a new sense: Homing
Here’s a lovely review of Hep Eve (the Turkish edition of my story collection Homing, from publisher Yüz Kitap): “A book that reminds people why they love stories. It’s like a delicious candy that melts in the mouth … as if Henrietta Rose-Innes is addressing a sense we have not discovered yet.”
The whole review (in Turkish) is here.
[image error]
December 11, 2016
Diving into the anthropocene swamp
The Chicago Review of Books calls Nineveh “a remarkable inquiry into humanity’s ongoing relationship with nature.”
Innes provides every detail of both human and natural architecture with impeccable precision. This attention to the physical world informs Nineveh’s well-mapped structure and propels forward a refreshing narrative, rife with irascible insects and immovable greenery.
Read the full review by Aram Mrjoian here.
Talking Nineveh on BBC Open Book
On Sunday 11th I spoke to Mariella Frostrup about Nineveh on BBC Radio 4’s “Open Book“. It’ll be broadcast again on Thu 15 Dec 2016, 15:30 – see link for more details, and to read the first chapter.
