Harare Review of Books, October 2024
Hi!
The year’s nearly over. The rainy season has finally arrived and I, for one, congratulate it 🩵
The Harare Open Book Festival was fun! Here's a write-up in the local paper.
Recently on the blog
If you'd like to support my work, or buy or preorder a book I’ve recommended, including the ones below, please do so on Bookshop here: I'd Rather Be Reading. I get a % of sales. You can also help keep HRB going by supporting HRB on Patreon for either $3 or $5 a month.
I must start with the last story, because the rhyme in Where is Jane? is one we used to chant as children in Bulawayo, where I grew up. It’s a spooky rhyme about a woman who haunted people who moved around at night, particularly those who went past the cemetery. [More]
Johnson traces the evolution of Black hair as expression in the US from the time of slavery, through entrepreneurship at the beginning of the twentieth century and Black Power and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, to the natural hair movement at the turn of the century and into the 21st. She deals adeptly with aspects from feminism to misogynoir, the economics and geopolitics of Black hair, the natural movement as a wellness project, Black hairstyles as protest, and, in thinking about colourism and texturism, who can be considered natural. [More]
This ode traces Mozambique’s colonial history through the life of one family. It begins with the mysterious appearance of a woman, Maria des Dores, one day in a quiet settlement in the mountains. She’s naked and in the river, in the men’s area. Her appearance provokes outrage, but it becomes apparent that Maria has suffered a mental break of some kind; she meets kindness in the form of a doctor, a priest, and a wise old woman. The rest of the novel takes readers back through time to explain how Maria has found herself there. [More]
Isn’t it everyone’s fantasy, to get away from it all and live somewhere deserted, relying on your own hardiness, skills, and smarts? There’s something appealing about it. Well, I loved this, Tove Jansson’s account of, with her partner, “Tooti,” building (initially illegally) and (mostly) summering on an isolated island, Klovharun, in the Gulf of Finland, from the 1960s. [More]
Dark Soil reminds me of, and can be argued to be a form of counter-mapping—traditionally used to mean the ways indigenous and marginalised communities make maps that counter those made by colonisers or hegemonic powers. This wonderful collection starts in Santa Cruz, California, in the US, but enlarges to encompass histories and possibilities elsewhere (the Philippines, and Guam). Some of the writing is fiction, but there’s also poetry and experimental work—an “ekphrastic approach to geography,” as Angie Sijun Lou says in the editorial introduction. All of the pieces are hauntological. [More]
Hopkinson builds alternative and just worlds, where people are free to be themselves; and when she isn’t doing that, she’s creating critical commentary on the unjust one we* have built. I love the freedom in these stories, sometimes hard-won, but always won (Hopkinson must be an optimist, and this feels like hopepunk; there’s joy in these stories!). I love, too, that these characters are gritty and determined, and very rarely cuddly. And I love the sensibility (often Caribbean-flavoured) that Hopkinson brings to her stories, particularly the ones about a changed climate. [More]
There’s something of the shaggy dog about some of these stories (mainly, I mean the story called The Basement, which is like Alice in Wonderland with a boy; but also That Green Liquid, about an at-home demonstration that turns absurd). The journey is the point; I didn’t always know what was going on, which is excellent in this case. [More]
All of these stories are super imaginative with many interesting ideas—as all SF should be—and fun to read. Of course, as happens with collections, I didn’t enjoy every single story. No matter: if you enjoy SF, you’ll enjoy this unique collection. [More]
In some ways, the title of this collection is redundant: aren’t grownups just always sad, all the time? It sometimes feels that way. Grownups have so many reasons to be sad, and the ones in this collection are sad about things like difficult relationships and unhappy families (all families are alike, etc), death, grief, loss, really bad decisions, and ongoing existential crises. But most of it is just life, with its ups and downs. [More]
This is the tender account of the relationship between a mother and a daughter when the daughter goes off to college in the US, how it evolves with the distance and changing rhythms of their lives. It’s a story about separation: leaving home and the culture you know to become an international student, speaking and thinking in a new language which starts to put up a barrier between you and home. It’s about all the meanings of home, and how we all, at some point, learn to leave so as to grow into ourselves. [More]
In the surreal and unsettling first story in this collection, the title novella, a man is invited to join an academic department in Lerna, Switzerland, on a fellowship where he finds that everyone there looks identical to him. If that weren’t unsettling enough, they all start dying, one after the other. [More]
Ada Hoffman’s collection of short stories and poems is divided into four sections thematically: Dusk, Midnight, The Small Hours, and Dawn—because, the author says, they were exploring ‘underworlds’: “How we descend into them, how we try to find or comfort each other within them, and how we eventually find our way back out.” (Yay for story notes from the author!) [More]
Happening in books
News
Bluesky is finally hopping after, rather oddly, the US Presidential election result. [:)] If you’re thinking of moving over, it’s finally a decent place for writers and readers. Check out stuff like feeds and starter packs to make your transition easier. Here’s a starter pack directory. Here’s an editors and publishers starter pack. Here's a starter pack of lit mags and presses; you can follow them individually, or follow all. And here’s some insider info: Bsky loves cats (pets in general, but the internet loves cats more); there’s a drive to be super inclusive; use ALT for your images by default. HRB is here.
Author and respected historian Pathisa Nyathi passed away in Bulawayo aged 73. One of the places you may have seen or heard him is Zeinab Badawi’s African history series. Gibson Ncube’s tribute.
Jamie Oliver’s children's book was withdrawn as it features an inappropriate Australian First Nations character. From The Conversation: “There was no consultation with any Indigenous organisation, community or individual.”—a very important read, I recommend it. The Australian Society of Authors has guidance.
Tordotcom has announced a new Martha Wells, coming in May 2025. It’s called The Emilie Adventures, and is a two-volume collection of YA steampunk.
Apparently the US’s rePresident wants to sue the NYT and Penguin Random House for defamation.
Book bans continue apace in the US. Here’s an example: schools in Wilson County have removed 425 books to comply with a state law. Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes has been banned a lot. This Harlem library has reopened. The NYT has an article about librarians facing a crisis of violence and abuse. Authors Against Book Bans released a statement on the recent US elections.
Mirza Waheed is boycotting a screening of the adaptation of his novel in an Israeli settlement.
Author Sonia Nimr spoke on childhood in Palestine at the really moving launch of her Thunderbird Trilogy.
PEN America’s CEO Suzanne Nossel has stepped down after a tumultuous year there.
Erin Cairns made allegations of ethical misconduct against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, which he has now responded to here. More from Locus.
Bernadine Evaristo and the RSL have launched a new prize for UK writers, the RSL Scriptorium awards. Evaristo will make her cottage available for retreats.
A new Orhan Pamuk is coming this month: his illustrated notebooks.
DC Comics plans to expand its Compact Comics line.
The mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow, has a plan for all libraries to open seven days a week by 2026.
Tsitsi Dangarembga is the 16th recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance
'Young people' have rediscovered bookshops. But a UK survey has found that children no longer enjoy reading.
At least 5,000 writers are boycotting Israeli institutions that are linked to the genocide in Gaza.
Hey now! Ugandan Ber Anena has signed a six-figure deal with Flatiron Books for The Lies We Tell for America.
Per Gautam Bhatia, Joe Sacco packed the venue when he was in New Delhi for an event.
Employees at Hachette in the US are not happy about a new conservative imprint, Basic Liberty.
Indian officials couldn’t find the original 1988 order banning the import of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, so apparently the ban is over.
Once again, Belgium is in the news for a racist comic book.
Madeleine Thien has asked the Giller Foundation to remove all of her work from their site.
Lavanya Lakshminarayan launched her latest book in Mumbai.
In pics: this launch of Makhosazana Xaba’s isiZulu version of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.
The Library of Africa and the African Diaspora announced their 2025 LOATAD Black Atlantic Residents.
South African writer Rayda Jacobs passed away aged 77.
Paul Bailey passed away aged 87.
Gary Indiana died at 74.
Akwaeke Emezi has announced a new book for young adults, Somadina, coming from Underlined Press in April 2025.
A Dutch publisher wants to use AI for English-language translations. And Cambridge University Press is asking authors for permission to licence their work for LLM training… while PRH is trying to protect its authors.
Donate your books to a children’s ward in Sussex, UK.
New edition of UKLG’s Five Ways to Forgiveness is coming next year, with an intro by Nnedi Okorafor.
A graphic memoir about George Takei, his life in the closet, and coming out is coming next year.
Tina Knowles’s Matriarch is coming in April of 2025 (—a 12-way auction for UK and Commonwealth rights!).
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere: A Love Story is coming in June 2025.
Nikki May’s This Motherless Land is November’s Read with Jenna book pick.
There’s a new statue of Keats in London.
Events
The Palestine Festival of Literature will be in Detroit, the USA, on November 22.
Check out the Penguin India Dialogues in New Delhi on November 20.
The African Literature Association Lecture Series presents a roundtable of five past ALA presidents on YouTube on November 23.
The Banipal Magazine Book Club will be discussing Nasser Abu Srour’s The Tale of a Wall on November 27, on Zoom.
Radical Books Collective has events for Read Palestine Week (November 29 to December 5). You can also sign up for more on YouTube here.
The Asmara-Addis Literary Festival (in Exile) is from November 29-30 in Brussels, Belgium.
Ake is happening from November 20 to 23!
Rónán Hession will interview Georgi Gospodinov on December 1 in Dublin. €5.
If you’re in Kampala, check out the Tubaze Book Club on November 30. They’ll be chatting about Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad.
London Reads the World is doing Thomas More’s Utopia in December.
If you’re in Brooklyn, NY, or nearby, check out the launch of Samahani (which I’m currently reading; it’s quirky and sad and really funny).
And if you’re in London, Noah Angell will be talking Ghosts of the British Museum on Thursday, November 21.
Uganda: Kampala Writes LitFest will be happening December 7-8.
There’s an online discussion of Thyme Travellers and Palestinian writing futures on November 20. Sign up here.
Prizes
Samantha Harvey has won this year’s Booker Prize for Orbital. I confess, I wasn’t super enthused. It was good though. Also, here’s some Booker trivia about Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch’s hub and potatoes. Be sure to read the replies.
Kamel Daoud has won this year’s Prix Goncourt for his novel Houris, about the Algerian civil war, but the book has no Algerian publisher. Welp.
…while Gaël Faye won the Prix Renaudot 2024 for Jacaranda.
Here’s the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals shortlist. The list includes Everett’s James, Adam Higginbotham’s Challenger, Cue the Sun by Emily Nussbaum, and Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!
The winningest Alexis Wright has won the $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Literature.
Gabrielle Mudiwa has won the Achmat Dangor Literary Prize 2024. The award is for an MA in Creative Writing at Wits Uni.
Ruskin Bond has received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman Awards.
The Middle East Librarians Association has selected Country of Words by Refqa Abu-Remaileh as their Book Awards! winner.
Here are the winners of the African Writers Awards.
The winner of this year’s Goldsmiths Prize is Rachel Cusk’s Parade.
Here’s the PEN Heaney Prize 2024 shortlist. Winners will be announced on December 2.
Suad Aldarra was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her memoir, I Don’t Want To Talk About Home.
Here’s the 2024 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation shortlist. The winner will be announced November 21.
Cassava Republic Press won the 2024 CANEX Prize for Publishing in Africa for Pumla Dineo Gqola’s Female Fear Factory.
Anne de Marcken won the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction for It Lasts Forever Then It’s Over.
Adaptations
Some trailers: Interior Chinatown, Conclave, Say Nothing, Like Water for Chocolate redux, and lots more on Lithub here.
There’s a new adaptation of The Master and Margarita—a review in LARB here.
A shorter-than-usual list of lists
African SFF recs from Wole Talabi, Lauren Beukes and TL Huchu.
How many of the Atlantic's Great American Novels have you read?
Fun stuff, cool stuff, interesting things.
Within the Landscape: A Postcolonial Ecocritical Reading of Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning (OA).
You can win a Solarpunk starter pack if you’re in North America: enter here.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu offers hope for troubled times.
Nhlanhla Dube: “Colonial white boys in Zimbabwe: John Eppel’s autobiography is a welcome book, but a difficult read.”
Some guy tried to explain Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to … Margaret Atwood.
Here’s a Kafka playlist. Not that kind.
Check out Issue 3 of Ubwali 🇿🇲.
Have you purchased a weirdly low-quality paperback book lately? This may be why.
Look at the first issue of the LRB from just yesterday, back in 1979.
Check out this episode of Transition on the Wire with Mónica Macías, author of the fascinating Black Girl from Pyongyang, and daughter of Francisco Macías Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea and a notorious dictator.
Craft and resources
Jobs, opportunities and residencies
The Carol Shields Prize Foundation at Diaspora Dialogues for women and enbee BIPOC writers in Canada is open for applications until November 29, 2024. It’s worth $10,000, people! Apply!
Clarion West’s Six-Week Workshop will be virtual next year. Details here (deadline February 15, 2025).
The Watermelon Grant for Palestinian Creators is open until December 6. Please tell your peeps.
Apply for an Assistant Professorship in Creative Writing, at Uni of Birmingham. (Poss. future goals)
So many ALTA Emerging Translator mentorships here. Closes November 30.
Verso Books seeks a Direct Marketing Manager. Closes 18 November.
Volunteer at the City of Asylum in Pittsburg, the US. They offer sanctuary to writers and artists in danger.
Apply to the 2025 Kweli Journal Fellowship Program if you’re BIPOC and living in NY, NY, USA. Closes November 19.
4th Estate is looking for an assistant editor. Closes November 24.
Submissions
The African Poetry Book fund is accepting applications for the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Closes December 1, 2024.
Afritondo’s Short Story Prize 2025 is open for subs from Black and African writers worldwide. Closes 23 December.
The SAFAL Kiswahili Prize for African Literature has announced a call for MS subs. Closes 30 November.
Stinging Fly is open for story, novel extract and poetry subs until November 27.
ANMLY is open for subs, and has fee waivers available.
Propel Magazine is open for poetry subs (UK and Ireland) until November 30 for their next issue.
So’s River Heron Review.
Bayou Magazine is open for cover art, fiction and poetry subs until December 15.
Postcard is open for prose and verse poem subs until November 30.
Up The Staircase is open for poetry and art until December 15.
Jalada has an open call for Jalada 10. The theme is resistance. Closes December 20.
Booth is open for all kinds of subs until November 30.
So is Geist, until December 4.
Fly on the Wall are open for short fiction and poetry until November 17.
Here’s a list of 99 lit mags that may still be open for subs this month.
The Houghly Review is always reading.
Send your mythic micros here. Pays $25.
Hayden’s Ferry Review is open for poetry, fiction, non-fiction and translation until November 30.
Are you a woman who travels and also writes? Pitch!
shome dasgupta’s list is always excellent.
Tramp Press is open for subs outside North America. Send your fic and narrative NF.
Send your “Between”-themed photos, poems and stories to Briefly Zine until November 30.
The Kalahari Review is always open.
The Deadlands is open for fiction this month.
Subs for Vocivia Magazine’s sixth issue, “Wanderlust”, close on November 22.
Lots of really good stuff (see section up there, and more on blog).
That's it for now. You can find me in all of the usual places: linktr.ee, Bluesky, Insta, on the blog, or by replying to this email. (I am still on Twitter/X and trying to leave—but writers, sigh.)
Take care! Tomorrow is basically Christmas.
J. 🌸💫
all you have to do if you are wondering the point of writing now is imagine the world without it — _ her_moth on X
"One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent." - Sandra Cisneros — City of Asylum on X.
Don't tell the poets but I learned today that birds sing in their sleep, dreaming the notes of their birdsongs — Natalie Eilbert on X
I absolutely ADORE Levroro. I'm as guilty as anyone of overusing the word 'genius' but he really is.