Cape Town Book Fair

Soli Philander chaired a discussion titled “How Green is My Bookshelf” which included food photographer, Russel Wasserfall and Pat Featherstone, Grow to Live. Christine Stevens, author of Harvest: Recipes from an Organic Farm, for which Wasserfall was the photographer, was also scheduled to the attend the event but was unfortunately unable to make it.

Despite his claim that he was here to look pretty rather than make good discussion, Philander provided an informative and entertaining introduction to the two books and the two panelists.

Featherstone is propelled by the belief that “people can only love something that they understand and care for something that they love”. She therefore uses education as her preferred medium. The focus is on teaching people to use what they have and on the benefits of doing so. The lid of a coke bottle becomes a nifty teaspoon when combined with a simple piece of wire and “nobody steals a coke-lid teaspoon” said Featherstone.

Quote of the hour: “This is not alternative living, this is the only kind of living”
-Soli Philander

Authors of HSRC Press’ The Prize and the Price asked questions about what they regard as “The Elephant In The Room” – the issue of heteronormativity.

According to Mellissa Steyn (co-editor), ‘heteronormativity’ refers to the institutionalization of heterosexuality at all levels of society, in a pervasive series of ideologies centering primarily around family and kinship. In other words, this means that the only sexual roles allowed within this paradigm are that of the eligible husband and the desirable wife, who couple up to produce the ‘right’ kind of children. Social meanings centered around this ideal circulate in society, forming the norm for how we agree we should be sexual. With “sexual” the panel referred to the ways in which we come out of our bodies, which is socially regulated. The panel discussed ways of being sexual at the margins of this social ideal, as well as the way in which heteronormativity operates as an invisible power in order to reproduce society along manageable patterns.

Quote of the hour: “For nearly 2000 years, women’s bodies were regarded as male bodies that are not fully developed.”
-Mellissa Steyn

During the HSRC “Writing History in the Wake of Apartheid” panel, the focus included the construction of a national history in Zimbabwe. It was considered how here, as elsewhere, the struggle for history is in fact a political struggle. Asking questions anew from where you are, and the right to assert stories outside the state legislated notion of history was emphasized as key strategies to challenging the officially recognized version of history. The latter, as in South Africa, is centred around ethnically problematic notions of what it means to be a Zimbabwean.

Quote of the hour: “Opening up the past, is opening up questions about citizenship in the present.”
-Panelist, HSRC ‘Writing History in the wake of Apartheid’

Why is it that the leaders of a liberation struggle become elites while those who actually fought in the struggle become the “losers”?

Moeletsi Mbeki looks at this question in his new book, Architects of Poverty. He spoke to post-colonialist scholar Achille Mbembe about the book at the Cape Town Book Fair, during a discussion entitled “Hollow Men: Can Africa’s leaders fulfill Africa’s promise?”

According to Mbeki, he got the idea from visiting Algeria after liberation. The struggle leaders were living in fancy houses and employing those who had fought for liberation as their domestic workers. There is also a piece in the book on the mistreatment of Ndebele people by Robert Mugabe.

“It made me wonder about what would happen to our country after liberation,” Mbeki said. Two chapters in the book are dedicated to South Africa in particular. “I have declared myself to not be part of the elite anymore.”

Quote of the hour: “I owe this book to the Nationalist Party – if they had not been in power, my parents would not have sent me in exile and I would not have seen as much of the continent as I have”
-Moeletsi Mbeki

Prof. Vasu Reddy was part of a panel which discussed the HSRC Press publication, The Prize and the Price: Shaping sexualities in South Africa. Reddy, a contributor to the book, said that the book arose out of a conversation in 2004 that preceeded a conference in 2007 on the same subject. It involved research into homosexuality and the developments that have taken place. Reddy’s research is based on archival material for what he termed the gay and lesbian “action memory” and the relationship between Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Quote of the hour: “It is important to look at the story line behind the book and at some of its meanings and messages.”
-Vasu Reddy

“George Bush did far more for the climate change debtae than Al Gore, for the single reason that he went to war with Iraq”: so says Simon Gear, “Everyone’s favourite weather man”. A Climatologist, Gear’s interest in climate change and our impact on the planet began while he was studying at UCT. According to Gear, the gist of it is that we have irrevocably changed our planet’s atmospheric make up – too much carbon dioxide – and there’s not much we can do about it. But we can slow the change down, and maybe stop it from getting worse.

“Green issues, especially at universities, tend to be these big crusade things… Everyone’s got to be a martyr, you’ve got to live this Spartan lifestyle… And that’s great, we need those people”. But, of course, humans are a selfish race. And, says Gear, that’s ok. According to him, all we have to do is change a few little things… Like cutting out meat entirely. His keywords? “Health, wealth and happiness. If you improve your life in two of these things, I can guarantee you the change will be greener too”.

For more tips on how to green things up a bit, read Gear’s book: Going Green – 365 Ways to Change Our World.

Quote of the hour: “If you want to personally improve your carbon footprint, eat less meat. Of course, for the South African male, that won’t cause much happiness.”
-Simon Gear

There is a major shortage of medical doctors, nurses, social workers, IT professionals, town planners and financial service professionals in South Africa.

This is what Dr Mignonne Breier found after extensive study compiled in the book Skills Shortages in South Africa: Case Studies of Key Professions. Breier spoke at the Cape Town Book Fair as part of a panel discussing the issue of skills shortages in South Africa.

Quote of the hour: “We did find, however, that there is a surplus of lawyers ”
-Dr Mignonne Breier

From IOL Tonight:

Gather at the Dalro Forum to hear authors discuss their book about the TRC testimony of the mother of one of the Guguletu Seven, There was this Goat. Duncan Brown, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele will be in discussion.

If you prefer chick-lit, meet Fiona Snyckers who is being hailed as the first South African writer of this genre. Her character, Trinity Luhabi, will have you laughing (and shedding the odd tear) when Snyckers talks about her book Trinity Rising.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile by Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni, Kopano Ratele
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781869141660
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Trinity Rising by Fiona Snyckers
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781868423170
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Visit the UCT stand at the Cape Town Book Fair to see the recent works of authors such as Dr N Khumalo, Prof A Chinsamy-Turan, and the late Prof Tony Fairall.

Also features other UCT exhibitors including SHAWCO & the Children’s Institute (promoting the latest issue of SA Child Gauge).

• Event details here

(more…)

The launch of Allan Boesak’s autobiography has been “postponed indefinitely” after former finance minister Trevor Manuel objected to claims that he and his family received “struggle accounting” money.

Manuel sent Boesak a lawyer’s letter over claims made in the book, which was due to be launched in Somerset West on Friday.

Manuel’s spokesperson Thoraya Pandy said Manuel had been advised on Friday that the publisher, Joho, had put the printing of the book on hold.

Boesak was also due to speak at the Cape Town Book Fair on Saturday but has now been dropped from the programme.

In the book, Boesak, who served a year in jail for theft and fraud of donor funds during the apartheid era, alleges the ANC “knows where the money went”. Boesak later received a presidential pardon.

• Read the complete article on IOL News

Book details

• Running with Horses: Reflections of an accidental politician by Allan Boesak
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780980275483
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!