BIG NAMES DRAW WESTERN CAPE AUDIENCE TO FESTIVAL Bookings are coming in from as far afield as Cape Town for the fourth annual Schreiner: Karoo Writers Festival to be held in Cradock from 9 – 11 August 2013. A number of big names have already been confirmed on the programme. The festival has “taken off” says Brian Wilmot, organising committee member and curator of the Olive Schreiner Museum in Cradock. The final programme for 2013 (to be released shortly) once again promises a mix of surprises, excursions, new voices and encounters with great writers. Lovers of the Karoo, of reading and of writing will get the chance to socialise with the likes of Etienne van Heerden, Margie Orford and Rachel Holmes during talks, readings, leisurely meals and fireside chats. Internationally renowned, Van Heerden is the leading South African novelist of his generation. He hails from Doornbosch farm near Cradock and he says this area is his own “landscape of the mind”. He will talk about In Love’s Place. To be released in August, at the Festival, this is the English translation of his In Stede van die Liefde. Queen of South African crime literature, Margie Orford will have a fifth “Dr Clare Hart” thriller out at just about the same time as the festival. Her courageous heroine is an investigative journalist-turned-profiler who skriks for niks ... but also enjoys getting it away from it all now and then. To places like the Karoo. Expect the unexpected from this exceptional writer. Rachel Holmes ran the London Literature Festival for four years – just one of her many interventions on the international book scene. Recently, she has spent time in Cradock researching the relationship between Olive Schreiner and Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl) – “one of the most crucial political, personal and emotional friendships of the period,” says Holmes. Her book on Eleanor Marx is due out early next year. Holmes’s previous books include biographies of Saartjie Baartman (“the Hottentot Venus”) and Dr James Barry, a brilliant nineteenth century army doctor whose gender identity has caused a great deal of speculation. The list of other published writers on the programme includes Clinton V. du Plessis (poetry), Ezelle Marais (cookery), Barbara Mutch (fiction), Harry Owen (poetry), Doreen Atkinson (social history) and Alfred Schaffer (Dutch poet). The festival offers an open space to the writers of tomorrow as well. Cradock high school learners are about to start preparing for the multi-media youth programme, co-ordinated by Upstart and the National English Literary Museum. Excursions during the festival include a trip to Olive Schreiner’s grave (on a nearby hilltop) and walks around Cradock’s numerous literary landmarks. For more information about the festival, special package rates and the programme, get in touch with Rika Featherstonehaugh, [email protected]
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:50:06 +0000
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