Umuzi

Umuzi congratulates renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt, who has received the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, “a prize to stimulate a photographer’s creativity by offering the opportunity to carry out a project that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.”

Goldblatt was honoured for his latest project, “TJ”, as collected in a forthcoming book, TJ: The Various Names of Johannesburg. As with his earlier work, Some Afrikaners Revisited, which featured contributions from, among others, Antjie Krog, Goldblatt has again teamed up with a writer, in this case Ivan Vladislavic, whose new novel, Double Negative, forms part of the book.

More from Art South Africa:

David Goldblatt has been awarded the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (2009), for his project “TJ”, . The award is intended for a photographer of exceptional ability who has an established career and has completed a significant body of work. This award will be followed by an exhibition of David Goldblatt’s essay of Johannesburg photographs at the Henri Cartier-Bresson in 2010.

Goldblatt has been photographing and documenting South African society for over 50 years. Born in Randfontein in 1930 to parents who came to South Africa to escape the persecution of Lithuanian Jews in 1890, he was simultaneously part of privileged white society and a victim of religious persecution and alienation. Motivated by his contradictory position in South African society, Goldblatt began photographing this society, and in 1963 decided to devote all of his time to photography.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• David Goldblatt by David Goldblatt, Lesley Lawson
  EAN: 9780714840512
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• Some Afrikaners Revisited by David Goldblatt
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415200254
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• TJ: The Various Names of Johannesburg by David Goldblatt (incorporating Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic)
  EAN: 9788869652189
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Nicholas Ashby, author of Time Pips, discusses the era of broadcast conservatism under apartheid and the breath of liberalism that came with Capital Radio – the subject of his current work in progress.

When the late Manu Padayachee debuted on M-Net as its first non-white TV presenter with the words, “Please do not adjust the colour on your sets, I look this way,” he was in a way following his own footsteps back along a path already travelled. In 1980 the young journalist had been recruited into the newsroom of Capital Radio 604, South Africa’s first “independent” broadcaster, which this month would have marked its 30th anniversary.

Some recall the dawn of 26 December 1979 in the small Pondoland town of Port St Johns as cool and windswept. The town is situated at the end of the treacherous, 100km road that winds down from Mthatha to the Wild Coast. Blood-red clouds gathered on the horizon. On top of a nearby hill a few beach buggies and Land Rovers were scrummed outside an Edwardian-era house overlooking the Indian Ocean and the Umzimvubu River.

• Complete article in the Sunday Independent

Book details

• Time Pips by Nicholas Ashby
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415200308
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In the middle of my livetweeting of the Random House Struik trade presentation this evening – the event was a look ahead at the books the group will be bringing out this year and next – a lengthy Twitter blackout occurred, after which I began again with slightly different search keys (by accident). So this livetweeting is one of two halves. Here’s the second (latter) half of the evening:
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Celebrated South African novelist, André P. Brink, talks to Alison Flood about his most recent publication, A Fork in the Road. He says on The Guardian Book Podcast, “There is a sense that writing is not futile after all.”

The celebrated South African novelist talks about changing Nelson Mandela’s mind, and why, although he hates autobiographies, he has written a memoir. This book appears in Afrikaans, published by Human & Rousseau, as ‘n Vurk in die pad.
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The film The Shaman’s Apprentice tells the story of Antoinette Pienaar’s healing and transformation in contact with Griqua “bossie doktor” Johannes Willemse – as detailed in Pienaar’s book, Kruidjie roer my.

The film forms part of a series of shorts called “The Healing Power of Nature”, each short directed by a well-known South African filmmaker. You’ve seen the Kruidjie roer my book, you’ve heard the herbalists speak, and you’ve watched the skyfievertoning. Now it’s time to see the film, which captures Pienaar’s wonderful, self-affirming energy:
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Umuzi, a Cape Town-based imprint of Random House Struik and a general publisher of fine fiction and narrative non-fiction, is looking for a top-notch book editor.

You have a minimum of five years of relevant book-editing experience. You are highly organised and excel under pressure. You are well-read and have sound general knowledge and literary insight. You are also personable, have great people skills and a thorough knowledge of English with at least a Bachelors degree that includes a major in English, while your computer literacy is beyond question.
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If ever there was a fab collection of photos on the web, it’s the double album from the most recent Mother City Queer Project (MCQP), which was themed “Matric Dance” and held at Cape Town High last December.

And if ever there was a fab tribute to the first fifteen incarnations of Africa’s biggest costume party, it has to be FAB, the book of photographs and reminiscences launched by Umuzi to coincide with the announcement of last year’s theme.

Got FAB? Here’s a slideshow for further visual seduction:
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With the Windies touring South Africa – and treating spectators to a tense and intruiging test series – some of the pain of last year’s disastrous Cricket World Cup will undoubtedly start to melt away.

Then again, the events of last March and April, which saw the horrific death of Pakistan’s coach Bob Woolmer cap two months of poor crowds and organisational disarray, can never be far from cricket lovers’ thoughts.

There is the tension and intrigue of a cricket match – and then there is the tension and intrigue of the shadowy world of cricket match fixing, which Laurie Claase’s new book Caught Out shows is pernicious and rife, and which many have associated with Woolmer’s death. Indeed, Claase’s meticulously-researched work will leave you wondering, to paraphrase reviewer Hilary Venables, whether there is any cricket that isn’t tampered with.

Venables’ substantial and considered article on Caught Out can be found in the first Noseweek of 2008, out now. Here’s a sample:
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Cape Town has rarely seen a book launch like this one: a party on three floors at a swish downtown hotel, packed to the rafters with people who know how to have serious fun.

But we shouldn’t have expected anything less from the faithful of the one-and-only Mother City Queer Project, who turned out to see their new-born baby, the coffee table sized celebration of queer style at the Cape, FAB, with as much pomp, circumstance and, well, pink as could be mustered.

The launch was like the MCQP writ every so slightly smaller – and also featured the announcement of the 2007 theme for this year’s bash (to be held on 22 December) – The Matric Dance – Back to School.

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FAB is a spectacular, human and humorous photo book celebrating queer culture at the biggest party in Africa, the Mother City Queer Project, held every summer in Cape Town.

The MCQP is a fancy-dress do thrown each year-end in Cape Town. Over the past 13 years it has grown into a gigantic event, a fixed item on the tourist agenda, attracting thousands of people from all over the world. It is a party where queer culture in its broadest sense is celebrated spectacularly, lovingly and with few inhibitions. Both gay and straight people are regulars, attracted by the space created for otherness and tolerance.

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