This from contemporary writers: One of South Africa’s most distinguished writers, André Brink was born in 1935. Poet, novelist, essayist and teacher, he began work as a University lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch Literature in the 1960s. He began writing in Afrikaans, but when censored by the South African government, began to also write in English and became published overseas. He remains a key figure in the modernisation of the Afrikaans language novel.

His book, A Dry White Season (1979), was made into a film starring Marlon Brando while An Instant in the Wind (1976), the story of a relationship between a white woman and a black man, and Rumours of Rain (1978) were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.  Devil’s Valley (1998) explores the life of a community locked away from the rest of the world, and The Other Side of Silence (2002), set in colonial Africa in the early twentieth century, won a Commonwealth Writers regional award for Best Book in 2003. He has also written a collection of essays on literature and politics, Reinventing a Continent (1996), prefaced by Nelson Mandela. 

He is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. His latest novels are Praying Mantis (2005) and The Blue Door (2007). His memoir, A Fork in the Road, has just been published.

I met Andre Brink recently at his home in Cape Town. (His lovely young wife Karina greeted me at the door and led me into his book-lined study. Before entering the house however, I encountered this in the garden:

). Once seated we talked mostly about his life, about his father, about love and duty, justice, Apartheid, inter-racial sex, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer; his love affair with poet Ingrid Jonker, her suicide, her poem ‘Plant me a Tree,’ English as his second language, Picasso, recommended wines and staying in South Africa, despite his nephew having been shot dead by intruders last year at his home just north of Johannesburg.

Stephen Johnson is Managing Director of the recently formed South African publishing firm Random House Struik. We talk here about the merger, the independence of SABC (the state owned South African Broadcasting Corporation), Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, Random House Struik’s political power, Apartheid’s banning of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, the current government’s under-funding of libraries, political corruption and the loss of early promise, Apartheid by other means, freedom, story-telling and other explanations for South Africa’s flourishing publishing sector, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Jacob Zuma’s shower head, and plans Johnson has for the future of his company.

Please listen here:

Copyright © 2009 by Nigel Beale. www.nigelbeale.com

JENNY HOBBS is a novelist and freelance journalist who lives in Franschhoek, South Africa. She is the author of four novels, Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary, The Sweet-Smelling Jasmine, The Telling of Angus Quain, and Video Dreams, four non-fiction books, and short stories published and broadcast locally and by the BBC. She reviewed books for many years and has written for and worked on TV book programmes, both as a presenter and interviewer.

She’s also the Literary Director of the Franschhoek Literary Festival, now in its third year. The event has enjoyed success from its opening page. Last year the Commonweath Writer’s Prize chose Franschhoek as the place to announce its winner (Canadian Lawrence Hill). We talk here about how the Festival came about, and what it takes to make it happen.  

Dawn Arnold is Chair of the Frye Festival in Moncton, New Brunswick. Jane Urquhart, Wayne Johnston, Neil Smith, Alexandre Jardin and Miriam Toews are among the many authors who will participate in this year’s ten day event.

Dawn and I talk here about the history of the Festival, Northrop Frye’s thoughts on imagination and new worlds, the benefits to children of learning more than one language, how writing affects understanding, Moncton strip clubs, Acadie, French language childrens’ authors, Richard Ford, classroom visits, and inspired students. For more information on this year’s Frye Festival please click here.

Please listen to our conversation here:

Pittsburgh Post Gazette Books Editor Bob Hoover has written about books with the paper for more than 20 years. We talk here, at a noisy diner

in the shadow of the Heinz ketchup factory, about the role of a books editor, Pittsburgh’s lively literary arts scene, blogs, the 800-900 review copies Bob receives each month, and keeping readers current about everything book related. We also talk about Bob’s connection with authors David McCullough and Michael Chabon, and his disconnect with Philip Roth and Paul Theroux; about Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban home, and the reviewing genius of John Updike.

Please listen here:

Copyright © 2009 by Nigel Beale. www.nigelbeale.com