Cape Town - As the temperatures cool and the leaves start to turn, Franschhoek is gearing up for its biggest annual event – the 10th Franschhoek Literary Festival.
The festival runs from Friday to Sunday, and is preceded by the the Book Week for Young Readers.
The wide-ranging programme looks at many of the issues that are currently preoccupying South Africans, from the economy to politics and relations between the races. But there are events about writing and reading as well, why authors choose the topics they do, and how they approach them.
The aims of the festival are worthy: to bring a cross-section of local and some foreign writers together to present interesting events, and to raise funds for local community and school libraries.
But the festival is mostly fun. There are spirited debates, informal discussions over a glass of wine at pavement cafés, and a weekend in a beautiful town. All the venues are within walking distance of each other.
Highlights include:
l Political analyst Justice Malala (We Have Now Begun Our Descent) discusses identity politics in South Africa with City Press editor Ferial Haffajee (What If There Were No Whites in South Africa?) and philosopher Jacques Rousseau (Critical Thinking, Science and Pseudoscience).
l Broadcaster Nancy Richards asks Nthikeng Mohlele (Pleasure), Patrick Flanery (I Am No One) and Rehana Rossouw (What Will People Say?) about how their fiction is influenced by the real world.
l Historian Bill Nasson (The War Comes Home) talks to Robert Eales about his new biography of Emily Hobhouse – The Compassionate Englishwoman.
l UCT academic Hedley Twidle discusses the themes of nature in the poetry of the late Stephen Watson (A Writer’s Diary) with Isobel Dixon.
l Author Christopher Hope (Jimfish) talks to former Rand Daily Mail editor Allister Sparks (The Sword and the Pen), and former Star editor Richard Steyn (Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness) about how journalists witness history.
l Journalist Marianne Thamm talks to jazz legend Hugh Masekela (Still Grazing) and American critic Margo Jefferson (Negroland) about the fusion of jazz, life and memoirs.
l Best-selling detective thriller author Deon Meyer (Icarus) talks to Karin Brynard (Weeping Waters), French author Berard Minier (The Frozen Death) and Israeli author Liad Shoham (Asylum City) about crossing international, moral or political boundaries in their plots.
l Critic Michele Magwood talks to Kathryn White (Anna Peters’ Year of Cooking Dangerously), Paige Nick (Death by Carbs), and Sally Andrew (Recipes for Love and Murder) about the role of food in fiction.
That’s just a glimpse.
For the full programme, see www.flf.co.za.
Cape Argus