Announcing: Collective Amnesia by Koleka Putuma

Cover photograph by Andiswa Mkhosi

We at uHlanga are wildly excited to announce the upcoming publication of Collective Amnesia, the eagerly-anticipated debut collection from award-winning page and stage poet Koleka Putuma.

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Pre-order Collective Amnesia for only R100 by clicking here.

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How many abortions have fallen out of your mouth
while counting the men in your life?

Madness sits at the dinner table, too, 
saying grace with one eye open.

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This highly-anticipated debut collection from one of the country’s most acclaimed young voices marks a massive shift in South African poetry. Koleka Putuma’s exploration of blackness, womxnhood and history in Collective Amnesia is fearless and unwavering. Her incendiary poems demand justice, insist on visibility and offer healing. In them, Putuma explodes the idea of authority in various spaces – academia, religion, politics, relationships – to ask what has been learnt and what must be unlearnt.

Through grief and memory, pain and joy, sex and self-care, Collective Amnesia is a powerful appraisal, reminder and revelation of all that has been forgotten and ignored, both in South African society, and within ourselves.

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Koleka Putuma was born in Port Elizabeth in 1993. An award-winning performance poet, facilitator and theatre-maker, her plays include UHM and Mbuzeni, as well as two two plays for children, Ekhaya and Scoop. Her work has travelled around the world, with her poetry garnering her national prizes, such as the 2014 National Poetry Slam Championship and the 2016 PEN South Africa Student Writing Prize. Koleka currently lives and works in Cape Town.

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Collective Amnesia will be released early-April 2017, with launches around the country. Please join our mailing list, Like uHlanga on Facebook, or follow Koleka on Twitter to stay up-to-date!

Find out how to pre-order Collective Amnesia for only R100 by clicking here!

Announcing: Thungachi, by Francine Simon

uHlanga is proud to announce the upcoming publication of Thungachi, the debut collection of Durban-born poet Francine Simon.

Knead me down
divide me thirty
palms of dough
your fingers sting
yet you know:
take your time

With expert, elegant and economical verse, Thungachi blends ancestral Catholic mysticism and ancient folk Hinduism to create new and essential portraits of modern South African-Indian identity and womanhood.

Unflinching and meditative, the collection tracks the journeys, migrations and maturations of peoples, families and the self,  all the while deftly innovating with form, language and style – ultimately marking Simon out as one of South Africa's most unexpectedly excellent poetic debutantes.

"An ambitious and sophisticated collection that blends formal invention with deeply felt experience." – Kobus Moolman

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Francine Simon was born in Durban in 1990 to Indian Catholic parents. Her poems have been published widely in South African literary journals, such as New Contrast, New Coin, Aerodrome and Type/Cast, as well as three volumes of the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award Anthology. 

Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the English department of Stellenbosch University.

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Thungachi will be released in late February 2017. Click here to find out more information about the book.

Like uHlanga on Facebook to keep up-to-date with launch events and dates.

Announcing an open submissions period in February 2017

uHlanga are excited to announce our first open submissions period for original chapbooks and collections of poetry from South African poets, or poets living in South Africa. This is the first time we are announcing an open reading period, and we are looking forward to reading exciting new work! Please take note the following important information.

Submissions will be open from 1 February to 28 February 2017. Manuscripts must be predominantly written in English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, or a combination of those languages. Every manuscript will be read, and all will be considered for publication.

There is no indicated length for manuscripts, although most books published by uHlanga contain 20-40 poems. (Manuscripts envisioned as chapbooks, for example, may be shorter, while epic poetry may contain very few poems.) The more coherent, structured and economical your manuscript is, the higher the chance of it being published – so do not simply include every poem you have ever written. Successful manuscripts will be published in the manner and format – e.g. full collection, chapbook – that uHlanga deems most appropriate for the content.

Please note that anthologies or retrospective collections will not be accepted. Manuscripts containing poems previously published in magazines, anthologies, journals, or online will be accepted, as long as each previously-published poem is acknowledged in the manuscript, and as long as the writer has the rights to reprint such poems. Manuscripts that have already been published previously as a whole will not be accepted.

We accept manuscripts from writers of any experience, whether they have published a collection of poetry before or not. The only criterium for eligibility is that writers either be South African, or a permanent resident of South Africa. 

Only writers of successful submissions will be replied to, and will be offered our standard contract. Please note that this is not a competition: we reserve the right to publish none of the manuscripts received during this submissions period.

Submissions will only be accepted through our email address, submissions@uhlangapress.co.za, as either .doc or .pdf attachments, with all text in Times New Roman. Include your name and contact information on a cover letter attached alongside the manuscript. Being familiar with our books is essential: feel free to mention to us why you think your manuscript will be a good fit for uHlanga.

There is no reading fee. Agented submissions are discouraged, but not strictly disallowed.

Do not submit your manuscript before 1 February 2017 or after 28 February 2017 – it will be discarded without being read. Good luck!

Announcing: Imbewu Yesini, an anthology of young Cape poets!

uHlanga, Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement and the Cape Youth Poetry Hub for Expression and Rhythm (CYPHER) are proud to announce the upcoming publication of Imbewu Yesini, an anthology of poetry, predominantly in Xhosa, written by young Cape poets.

Imbewu Yesini – compiled of work by various members of CYPHER aged between 15 and 19 – presents a journey through the gendered experiences of young poets, bearing witness to the wounds and the narratives that have come to separate women and men, and celebrating our power to shed worn petals and plant new seeds.

This marks the first of many upcoming collaborations between uHlanga, CYPHER and Lingua Franca, helping to bridge the gap between page and stage, and to promote publication of more poetry in African languages. CYPHER's youth poets represent a diversity and breadth of communities in the greater Cape Town area and beyond, including Fish Hoek, Khayelitsha, Delft, Mfuleni, Stellenbosch, Gugulethu, Knysna, Kraaifontein, Philippi, Simon’s Town and many more.

Featured poets include Lesego Mkhize, Sethu “Qhawekazi” Phekelela, Molupi Lepedi, Aviwe Gwele, Palesa Mohlala, Vusumuzi Mpofu, Genevieve Zongolo, Phelisa Sikwata and Sisipho Makambi. The cover art is by Danny Mose Modiba. The collection also includes a foreword by uHlanga poet Koleka Putuma, whose debut collection, Collective Amnesia, will be published by uHlanga in April 2017.

Imbewu Yesini is to marked for release at the end of November. For launch details, follow both uHlanga and Lingua Franca on Facebook.

Announcing: Modern Rasputin, by Rosa Lyster

uHlanga are proud to announce our latest release: Modern Rasputin, by Rosa Lyster. Lyster's collection is the first of a trio of releases of debut collections by South African women poets, with collections by Francine Simon and Koleka Putuma to follow in 2017. This weird, poignant and wonderful collection from one of South Africa's brightest and most unique young writers, is set to be released late-November 2016.

Challenge extended: we wonder, 
would you spend an afternoon
in the dark and foreign corners
of the Wikipedia category “Australian Criminals”?

Eclectic, eccentric and eloquent, Modern Rasputin firmly establishes Rosa Lyster as one of South Africa's most exciting young writers. Diving into a (not entirely made-up) world of precocious children, hand-poked tattoos, minor royalty, Russian prisons, and electrocuting water faucets, Lyster's debut is a testament to the wild machinations of imagination and the soft poignancies of friendship and young womanhood. 

With found poems – from e-mails, books, and exam papers – treatises on film, and other poetic anarchies, Lyster expands traditional concepts of narrative poetry, providing one of the most unpredictable and cosmopolitan collections from South Africa in years.

Rosa Lyster was born in Durban in 1984. Her writing has been published by The New Yorker, Prufrock, The Millions, The Hairpin, The Toast, the Sunday Times, and many others. Rosa lives in Cape Town, where she works as an essayist and a PhD student at the University of Cape Town.

Modern Rasputin will be released in November 2016, for sale through bookstores throughout South Africa, and elsewhere from the African Books Collective. To order copies for your store, contact our distribution agents, Xavier Nagel Agencies.