‘Literary event of the year’ soon
LINEUP: LOCAL, PAN-AFRICAN, INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS Top talent from across the globe to participate in Franschhoek festival.
Franschhoek Literary Festival 2024 has announced its official programme with a lineup of local, pan-African and international authors. The programme features panel discussions, author interviews, interactive writing workshops and poetry readings; and Melodies in Words, an evening of artsong and poetry.
Designed to cater to a diverse audience
Among the local authors and works featured in this year’s programme are:
▶ Andrew Brown (The Bitterness of Olives);
▶ Angela Makholwa (The Reed Dance Stalker);
▶ Arthur Goldstuck (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI);
▶ Anoeschka von Meck (Twa die Tydloper);
▶ Busisekile Khumalo (Sunshine and Shadows);
▶ Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster);
▶ Ivan Vladislavić (The Near North);
▶ Justice Malala (The Plot to Save South Africa);
▶ Karen Jennings, author of Crooked Seeds (longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize);
▶ Acclaimed poet Koleka Putuma and her brand-new collection, We Have Everything We Need to Start Again;
▶ Margie Orford and her long-anticipated memoir, Love and Fury;
▶ Nozibele Qamngana-Mayaba (Positively Me);
▶ Pieter-Dirk Uys (One Man Shows);
▶ Sally Andrew, who will be launching her long-awaited Tannie Maria cookbook, Recipes to Die Live For;
▶ Shubnum Khan (The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil);
▶ Zibu Sithole (The Thing with Zola);
Franschhoek Literary Festival 2024 also boasts a list of established and newer pan-African voices.
Authors on the 2024 list are:
▶ Adekeye Adebajo. Adebajo is the author of eight books, including The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War and Thabo Mbeki: Africa’s Philosopher-King.
▶ Kobby Ben Ben. Born in Ghana, Ben Ben runs @bookworm_man on Instagram. No One Dies Yet is his first novel. It has been described as “genre-breaking”.
▶ Femi Kayode. Kayode lives in Windhoek, Namibia. Gaslight, his crime thriller, has received rave reviews.
▶ Morabo Morojele. Raised in Ethiopia, Italy and Lesotho, Morojele has a voice all his own.
Three Egg Dilemma is his second novel.
▶ Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu. She was raised in Nairobi and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Lucky Girl is her debut novel.
▶ Troy Onyango. He is an award-winning writer from Kisumu, Kenya. For What
Are Butterflies Without Their Wings is his debut short-story collection.
The festival is also hosting several esteemed international authors who will add a global perspective. Among them are:
▶ Cecelia Ahern. She is a Dubliner well known for her bestselling novel PS, I Love You. Her novels have been translated into 35 languages and have sold more than 25 million copies. She released a new novel – In a Thousand Different Ways – in 2023.
▶ Bolu Babalola. She is a British-Nigerian writer. Her debut novel, Honey & Spice, (July 2022) was met with phenomenal success. A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, it was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and also won the TikTok Book Awards Book of the Year.
▶ Candice Carty-Williams. Born in South London in 1989, Carty-Williams’ bestselling novel Queenie
(2019) made her the first black writer to win the Book of the Year award at the British Book Awards.
▶ Patrick Radden Keefe (appearing virtually). Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at
The New Yorker and the author of
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction). His new book,
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, is a collection of 12 of his best stories in The New Yorker.
▶ Andrey Kurkov (appearing virtually). Kurkov is Ukraine’s most celebrated writer. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, was published in 2014. Diary of an Invasion, written in 2022, came out in 2023.
▶ Tim Marshall (appearing virtually). Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs, with more than 30 years’ reporting experience. He is the author of two No. 1 Sunday Times bestsellers: Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics; and The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World: The Illustrated Edition.
His latest book is The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World.
▶ Lynda la Plante (appearing virtually). Born in Liverpool, La Plante is known as the Queen of Crime. She is the author of over 40 novels, all of which have been bestsellers. Alibi: A Trial & Retribution Thriller is her latest book.
▶ David Walliams. Since the publication of his ground-breaking first novel, The Boy in the Dress (2008), Walliams has seen unprecedented growth (with global sales exceeding 56 million copies).
▶ Pip Williams. Born in London, Williams now lives in Australia. Her debut novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, was a New York Times bestseller. The Bookbinder of Jericho is her second novel.