South African poetry since 2014

uHlanga at the 2025 Open Book Festival

August 5, 2025

Six uHlanga poets will take part in nine events during this year's Open Book Festival in Cape Town, from 5–7 September 2025 – Kopano Maroga, Athambile Masola, Manthipe Moila, Nick Mulgrew, Maneo Mohale, and Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal.

Make sure to join us for a special ten-year uHlanga reading on Saturday afternoon from 16:00 at the Book Lounge.

Elsewhere our authors will be touching on topics as diverse as artificial intelligence, queer anxiety and imagination, recovering feminist histories, first-person poetics, and even a one-on-one interview between Maneo Mohale and Zimbabwean superstar Tsitsi Dangarembga.

The events featuring uHlanga poets are below, in order of date and time. Click on any image below to take you through to the event page, on which you can buy tickets!

About uHlanga

uHlanga is a small South African poetry press run by Nick Mulgrew.

Our books are available to order from all retail bookstores in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Our distributors are Protea Distribution in Cape Town and can be reached at +2721 001 7618.

Outside of South Africa, many of our books are available print-on-demand through the African Books Collective.

On social media

Sign up with your email address to receive occasional emails about our new books, submissions opportunities, and more. Sign up now via our 🔗 in bio. #uHlanga #poetry #poemspoemspoems #newsletter

“It is our pleasure to introduce Owele, the shimmering new book of poems by the South African poet, Sihle Ntuli. Over the summer, we— Abhijit and O-Jeremiah, fourth and third year Phd students of the CWP sat down virtually with Ntuli to discuss Owele, his motivation, approaches, and poetics. For those that don’t know already, Ntuli was the winner of the most recent edition of the University of Georgia CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM-sponsored Diann Blakely National Poetry Competition, judged by Vivek Narayanan. What struck us immediately about Ntuli’s new book is the poignant sense of place (and un-place) both spiritual and geographical.” What a wonderful interview with Owele poet, @sihlexntuli Read it now at our 🔗 in bio. #uHlanga #poetry #poemspoemspoems #SihleNtuli #poet #OwelePoems

“With new dawn’s energy I must strengthen my sinews For I have seen creatures stampede And build icebergs in Liberty’s path But volcanic tides will charge Making love to our own ploughs Which must furrow for life” -from “Soweto wishes” by Lindiwe Mabuza In the late 1970s, Lindiwe Mabuza, a.k.a. Sono Molefe, sent out a call for poems written by women in anc camps and offices throughout Africa and the world. The book that resulted, published and distributed in Europe in the early 1980s, was banned by the apartheid regime. Half-forgotten, it had never appeared in a South African edition. With a preface by Uhuru Phalafala and a new introduction by Makhosazana Xaba, and featuring a lost artwork by Dumile Feni, 📗 buy ‘MALIBONGWE: Poems from the Struggle by ANC Women’ now via our link in bio. #uHlanga #poetry #poemspoemspoems #SonoMolefe #poet #MalibongwePoems #LindiweMabuza