Authors & Events
IN THEIR OWN WORDS | Popina Khumanda, Zakhe Mazibuko & Penny Haw

14 July 2025
In Their Own Words brings together powerful voices from across genres and experiences. In this edition, Popina Khumanda shares the raw, heartbreaking story of her escape from war-torn DRC in The Smallest Ones. Zakhe Mazibuko unpacks faith, freedom, and financial truth in Preacher, Let My People Go. Penny Haw reflects on the past’s grip on...
Emma Nanami Strenner on Identity, Home, and Her Debut Novel

14 July 2025
In her luminous debut novel My Other Heart, Emma Nanami Strenner weaves
a poignant story about identity, family, and the longing for belonging across
continents. Spanning Philadelphia, Tokyo, and Saigon, the novel follows three
women – Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina – whose intertwined paths explore adoption,
cultural...
Open Book Festival 2025: Cape Town’s Most Beloved Literary Gathering Returns

14 July 2025
From 5-7 September 2025, Cape Town’s vibrant literary scene comes alive
once more as the Open Book Festival returns to the city’s heart. A celebration
of books, ideas, conversation and community, this much-loved event invites
readers, writers and thinkers to come together in a shared love of storytelling.
First launched in 2011...
IN THEIR OWN WORDS | Ocean Vuong, Claire Robertson & Karin Mitchell

09 June 2025
What does it mean to belong — to a place, a people, a history? Three powerful new books explore this question from strikingly different angles. Claire Robertson’s The Immortalites is a lyrical frontier epic set in 19th-century South Africa. Karin Mitchell’s The High Treason Club unpacks the chilling true story of the Boeremag...
Morgan Dick on Family, Flaws and Finding the Funny

05 June 2025
In Favourite Daughter, debut author Morgan Dick delivers a funny, tender,
and emotionally rich novel about two estranged sisters thrown together by
their late father’s will. Tackling themes like grief, addiction, mental health,
and the complexities of family, Dick balances heartbreak with humour in a
way that feels both relatable and...