BOTSOTSO will be launching six new titles at Xarra Bookshop, Mary
Fitzgerald Square, Newtown: 6pm, Thursday 19 July, 2007
Collections of poetry
FALLING FROM SLEEPby Mark Espin, a non-dogmatic, activist poet whose
exercises in the philosophical evocation of life in Cape Town are
emotional and intellectual
BELLA, the collected poems of Isabella Motadinyane who died in 2003,
and was one of the founder members of the Botsotso Jesters poetry
performance group; her surreal and multi-lingual work offers a sharp
female perspective on South Africa
POETIC LICENSEby Mike Alfred, the septuagenarian poet of Troyville,
Johannesburgwhose wry exposures of the human and the natural are
sophisticated and humorous yet down to earth and cutting
A PRIVATE PART,poems and drawings by Lionel Murcott, is the interplay
between word and image, Lionel being equally proficient with both; a
teacher at the National School for the Arts in Johannesburg, he is well
placed to push multimedia collaboration to the limit
Fiction
TOTEM AND CANDIDATE/SING BABYLON,two novellas by Marcelle du Toit,
offering contrasting southern African scenarios: one set in Hillbrow,
being a tale of Rastas, Jewish neurosis, jazz fiends, hallucination and
the contradictions African patriarchy creates for independent black
women; the second set in a ‘mythical’ African state in the
post-liberation period when the corruptiveness of power shows its dirty
hand and forces different elements to reconsider their allegiances
Drama
BLIND VOICESa collection of four radio plays by Kobus Moolman, who is
also a poet and creative writing teacher from Pietermaritzburg; the main
play, SOLDIER BOY, about the effect of the Total Onslaught wars fought
by White South Africa, was broadcast by the BBC in 2003. A CD recording
of that production is attached to the book. The other three plays are
more abstract, almost Becketian, and have yet to be recorded.
The launch will feature readings from the books and a discussion on the
role and status of independent, non-commercial publishers
