The UCT Writers Series

Stephen Watson, guide, teacher, friend

In April 2011, our guide, teacher and friend Stephen Watson passed away. He had been ill for some months, and his illness and passing seems sudden to everyone who knew him. Stephen co-founded the Series and was intimately involved with the development of every book in it. And beyond the books you see here, he was a central part of our development as writers. Without him, our Series is unmoored. While we can never fill the hole that his passing leaves, the Series will grow in time in tribute to him. At BOOKSA, Ben Williams outlines Stephen's gigantic contribution, and gathers tributes from friends.—Arthur Attwell

Hyphens wins the 2010 Ingrid Jonker Prize

We're thrilled that Tania van Schalkwyk's collection Hyphen has won the 2010 Ingrid Jonker Prize. From the press release:

Van Schalkwyk’s poetic voice was declared “a rich addition to English South African writing” and her collection Hyphen “a very significant volume indeed”. One judge asserted that “there is not a single poem in this volume that does not expand the reader’s consciousness”. Judges were won over by van Schalkwyk’s “lushly evocative and yet also understated” poems and considered that “this is a literary poetry, rich in ideas” which “repays study and thought”. Van Schalkwyk was lauded for the “incandescence” of her poetic insight which emerges from diction that is deceptively casual, “almost prose-like”. The panel admired the “quiet humour”, the delicate capturing of “human strangeness”, and the refusal to embellish, all of which characterise Hyphen.

You can read the press release, Book SA's coverage, Die Burger's coverage (Afrikaans) and go to the book's page to find out more about it and read a sample right now. Contact us to order copies (recommended retail price R95).

Hyphen, by Tania van Schalkwyk

Winner of the 2010 Ingrid Jonker Prize

‘a rich addition to English South African writing … there is not a single poem in this volume that does not expand the reader’s consciousness … this is a literary poetry, rich in ideas’ Ingrid Jonker Prize press release

‘Tania van Schalkwyk’s poems are warm, sensuous memories that often shock and surprise at the same time … They are not just on inner space, but are poems of place, as they move from islands to the veld, from cities to the desert.’ Lindsey Collen, author of The Rape of Sita, Mutiny and Boy, and twice winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa

‘It is the special gift of Tania van Schalkwyk’s poems to translate into memorable speech a life which, given its diverse origins, might well have been “lost in translation”.’ Stephen Watson, Professor of English, University of Cape Town, and author of Return of the Moon, Presence of the Earth, and The Other City

Foundling’s Island, by P. R. Anderson

This collection of coasts and journeys, creatures and dreams is so crafted, and simultaneously substantial and light, that to read it is to be a stone skimming water.

As an unpublished manuscript, Foundling’s Island shared the Sanlam Literary Award in 2003.

In The Same Space, by M Blackman

Nick Sunderland is a twenty-something drifter in London, caught in one of the world’s oldest quandaries. Deft, compelling and piercingly witty, Blackman’s debut is a morality tale for the twenty-first century.

Killing Time, by Arthur Attwell

Whether describing the wonder and fright of a crab giving birth, a visit to the dentist, or an estuary full of bodies and shimmering birds, Arthur Attwell shows how the ghosts of our childhood, relationships, and the course of history continue to find and startle us.

Personae, by Sarah Johnson

Personae is a book of voices. In assuming the identities of a variety of figures, many from biblical history, Sarah Johnson speaks of the unspoken in their lives, revealing that often troubled point of intersection between the devotional and the erotic, and also the truth – poetic and otherwise – of Emerson’s dictum: “Many . . . can write better in a mask than for themselves.” This collection is remarkable in that its voices, speaking out of their own lives and histories, connect directly, acutely to ours.

Revisitings, by Kim McClenaghan

Kim McClenaghan, born in East London in 1974, lived in the Transkei until the age of 14 when his family moved to Cape Town. He now lives in London. His MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town was on the 1856 cattle killings instigated by the prophetess Nongqawuse. He is a former editor of the literary magazine New Contrast.

Time and Again, by Fiona Zerbst

Fiona Zerbst was born in Cape Town in 1969. She has lived in Johannesburg and Cape Town and spent six months in Ukraine and Russia in 1995. Her two previous books of poetry are Parting Shots (Carrefour Press, 1991) and The Small Zone (Snailpress, 1995). Her poems have appeared in the anthologies The Heart in Exile (Penguin), The Pick of Snailpress (David Philip) and City in Words (David Philip). She holds a Masters degree from UCT and works as an editor.

The UCT Writers Series

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