Platform for SA literary works
Q&A with the Jacana Media team – By Carla Lever
Why is it important for you to tell a wide variety of South African stories?
We publish work from some of the most imaginative and clearthinking minds of our time. The diversity of our list allows us to respond to the challenges of the moment, stir dialogue and provoke debate.
What kinds of books does Jacana typically like?
We love those titles which open debate on current issues, think of Hennie van Vuuren’s Apartheid Guns and Money,
Pumla Dineo Gqola’s awardwinning Rape: A South African Nightmare and the remarkable Native Nostalgia from Jacob Dlamini. Fiction is a tough sell in South Africa, but titles such as Tsitisi Dangaremba’s This Mournable Body and Panashe Chigamudzi’s Sweet Medicine
both make our hearts sing andmake booksellers happy.
Can you tell us a little about your imprint called Blackbird? Blackbird publishes fiction, especially by young black women, with the intention of bringing to light innovative work and new ways of writing. In fact, BlackBird is the publisher of the bestseller Sweet Medicine (2015) which won the K Sello Duiker Literary Prize in 2016.
Blackbird has gone some of the way towards creating a platform for writers of colour. What will it take for us to build and sustain more of these platforms for meaningful diversity in our storytelling industries?
Writers of colour need publishers and, more particularly, publishers of colour to shape, grow and celebrate their writing. Publishing houses have traditionally been mostly white and male, but they’re transforming as the reading market demands more from them. Book fairs like Abantu encourage this demand, and with more support they’ll drive a more progressive industry.
You collaborate with The Other Foundation to run the annual Gerald Kraak prize for all kinds of writing about gender, human rights and sexuality. Can you tell us a little about what the competition involves and how people can enter their work? The Jacana Literary Foundation facilitates the compilation of the judging panel and oversees the judging process to ensure that the judges select a longlist of submissions to be included in the book along with selecting the overall winner. The subject matter of the work must relate to gender, sexuality and social justice in Africa, but we accept a very wide variety of forms, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, journalism and scholarly articles. If you’re a citizen of an African country who lives and works on the continent, you can apply on our website: www.jacana.co.za.
Competitions are great ways to inspire new and emerging writers to finish a project. What kind of exciting new talent has the prize helped you uncover?
Our not-for profit Jacana Literary Foundation is actually home to a number of awards, all of which showcase remarkable talent. The Gerald Kraak Award is just the most recent. Many new writes have risen to prominence through our Dinaane Debut Fiction Award – perhaps the best known is Kopano Matlwa’s book Coconut, which sold in excess of 30,000 copies.
What are the judges looking for?
We’re looking for multi-layered, brave and stirring African voices that represent a new wave of fresh storytelling, one that provokes thought on the topics of gender, social justice and sexuality. Entries are judged blind (no author detail is specified on the material sent to the judges). Judges are looking for work which tells a story or illustrates an idea. If one brilliant photograph achieves this, then they’ll even accept the submission of that single image!
What new authors on your catalogues should we look out for?
Juby Mayat with Freedom Writer
Jolyon Nuttal with Vintage Love
Lebo Mashile with Mama’s Shadow
Saskia Bailey with Whatever ● Reading and telling stories with your children is a powerful gift to them. It builds knowledge, language, imagination and school success! For more information about the Nal’ibali campaign, or to access children’s stories in a range of South African languages, visit: www.nalibali.org.