Announcing: The Mushroom Summer of Skipper Darling by Tony Voss

uHlanga is happy to announce the publication of The Mushroom Summer of Skipper Darling by Tony Voss. One of South(ern) Africa's most astute critics of poetry over the decades, Voss is finally publishing his debut collection at the age of 83. The book is brought out by our friends and collaborators at Crane River, and has been produced and distributed by uHlanga.

This is a collection that accomplishes that rare thing in poetry: of being an immediate pleasure even as it demands re-reading and slow contemplation. With classical form and meter meeting modern sensibility and local image, The Mushroom Summer of Skipper Darling fills a gaping absence in South African letters, and will kickstart an appreciation anew of a strong, steady and significant influence on this country’s literature.

Voss was born in Swakopmund in 1935. He was educated at St George’s Grammar School, Rhodes University, and the University of Washington, Seattle. His interests were formed by his Southern African upbringing, his parents’ faith, and imagination – from songs of the First World War and swing, to Yeats’s Oxford Book of Modern Verse. He taught English in universities until he retired from the service of the then University of Natal in 1995.

The book is available to order from most worthwhile bookshops in SA and Namibia.

Open submissions in February 2019

uHlanga are excited to announce our second open submissions period for original collections of poetry from South African poets, or poets living in South Africa. Our last open submissions period resulted in the publication of three books, and we look forward to reading new work!

Please take note the following important information.

Submissions will be open from 1 February to 28 February 2019. 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 that uHlanga deems most appropriate for the content.

Please note that anthologies or retrospective collections – i.e. collected or selected poems – 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. Manuscripts that have already been published previously – including self-publishing – will not be accepted.

We accept manuscripts from writers of any experience, whether they have published a collection of poetry before or not. It is, however, highly recommended that you read our director’s open letter, penned after the last open submissions period in 2017. It contains insights that will be helpful for your submission.

GUIDELINES

1. Writers must be either a citizen, national, or permanent resident of South Africa.

2. 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.

3. You must prove ownership of at least one uHlanga book (either by photo/screenshot of a receipt, or a selfie with the book, or by other means) to submit your manuscript. This proof must be attached in your email submission. (Note: This condition will be waived if you cannot afford to – or otherwise cannot – buy one of our books. Please be in touch if this is the case.)

Successful writers 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.

As noted above, 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 2019 or after 28 February 2019 – it will be discarded without being read. Good luck!

Announcing In a Free State by P.R. Anderson, and the new edition of Foundling's Island

uHlanga is proud to announce the imminent release and launch of In a Free State: A Music, the third book by award-winning poet P.R. Anderson, as well as the new edition of his second collection, Foundling’s Island.

Already lauded by Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee as a book “destined to be a landmark in South African poetry”, In a Free State constitutes a unique and ambitious new approach for Anderson. With 74 poems split into 3 sections, choral spines and an assortment of voices, Anderson discombobulates and re-assembles the image and idiom of the various nations, landscapes and earthscapes of central South Africa. From first peoples, to those who took and settled on their ancestral lands, and to those for whom that land would come ancestral, In a Free State encompasses and compresses centuries of human drama into a fleeting and temperamental poetic narrative.

Yet this is no drudge, nor is it a historical yarn. With an easy mastery of form and metre, coupled with swashbuckling metaphorical and -textual flourish, Anderson’s new “music” is a bold and visionary work. A piece of South African poetry – and South African storytelling – unlike any other.

We’re also happy to be re-publishing Anderson’s award-winning second collection, Foundling’s Island, which was published by UCT’s Centre for Creative Writing and Electric Books Works in 2007, and which, as an unfinished manuscript, shared the 2003 Sanlam Literary Award. The collection announced his arrival as a fresh and significant voice in South African poetry.

In print again for the first time in a decade, Foundling’s Island’s journey of coasts, creatures and dreams is as tightly crafted and joyously readable as it has ever been – a collection in which form is created and meaning maintained with the lightest of touches, to the greatest effect.

P.R. Anderson, born in 1967, studied at the Universities of Oxford and Cape Town; he currently lectures at the latter in English Language and Literature. The recipient of the 2017 Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry and the 2003 Sanlam Literary Award, he is also the author of the collection Litany Bird (Carapace Poets, 2000).

In a Free State and Foundling’s Island will be launched on Wednesday 28 November 2018 at the Book Lounge in Cape Town. Further events in the city and in the country will be advertised in 2019.

uHlanga distributes with Protea Boekhuis

uHlanga is proud to announce a partnership with Protea Boekhuis's Distribution Centre.

Protea Boekhuis started as Protea Boekwinkel, a small bookstore in Pretoria, in 1992. Twenty-five years later, they now publish books, as well as distribute and represent the books of other presses.

As of 1 September 2018, Protea Boekhuis will represent, sell and distribute all uHlanga titles to the book trade in South Africa and Namibia.

uHlanga would like to sincerely thank Xavier Nagel Agencies, our distribution partner since 2015, for their great work over the past three years.