Announcing An Illuminated Darkness, the debut collection from Jacques Coetzee, out now in print and audio, soon in braille

We're very proud to announce the release of An Illuminated Darkness, the debut collection from Jacques Coetzee, a stalwart of the Cape Town poetry scene.

Coetzee's poetry is extraordinary. Living with visual impairment since birth, and blindness for the majority of his life, his poetics is necessarily different to those of sighted writers. Of course, his experiences are different, too. His poems are filled with unwanted prayers, resented kindnesses, and other proofs that living with visual impairment is less about matters of sight than it is about problems of perception; most often, other people's.

But a life without mirrors is not a life without self-examination. On the contrary, Jacques’s debut is a manifesto of personhood, a portrait of a world brought into being by its textures, its movements, and – most importantly – its music. Easy-flowing and sensuous, this is a collection of the unexpected, the strange, and the suddenly beautiful.

Representation matters too, of course. Blind poets are rare in South African letters, and because of this, we're trying to make our books more accessible. We are collaborating with Blind SA to make Jacques' book into braille editions for print-disabled readers, are having it made available on their soon-to-be-launched e-library service, and have even created an audiobook of Jacques reading the poems, which is free now to download and listen to on Soundcloud and our website.

Jacques Coetzee, born in 1972, matriculated from the Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester. He has worked as a busker at the Cape Town Waterfront, and has tutored English literature to first- and second-year university students. In 2002 he obtained a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town, and in 2018, he and Barbara Fairhead published a joint anthology of poems, The Love Sheet. He currently lives in Cape Town, where he is a singer-songwriter in the band Red Earth & Rust.

An Illuminated Darkness is available through all good bookstores in SA and Namibia, as well as through the African Books Collective, from 1 September 2020.

Announcing Rumblin', the new chapbook from Sihle Ntuli

Photo by Niamh Walsh-Vorster

We're happy to announce the upcoming release of Rumblin', the new chapbook from Durban poet Sihle Ntuli.

Ntuli is a poet that does something that many poets try, and most fail at. His poetry is based on its own internal rhythm and music.

Perhaps even more so than other South African cities, Durban is a place that is defined by its music and soundscape, from the steady persistence of waves along its long-stretching coast, to the Dopplering noise of taxis as they trawl the sprawling metropolis with over-loud and distorting sound systems. (There's a reason why it's the home of qgom, after all.) It is a city that is as loud as it is humid, and is as inside you as you are inside it. Rumblin' captures this Durban in a style gradually becoming Ntuli's own – sparse free verse that relies on its own beat and sound to create and emphasise meaning.

It's a slim and surprising chapbook, full of verve, unexpected pockets of sadness and humour, and, in general, is just really good. This is the right thing for you if you're tired of the same old thing.

Ntuli is a classicist and academic, born in 1990. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Classical Civilisations and has lectured previously at the University of the Free State. During his tenure, he was awarded the 2019 CTL Innovation Award for Curriculum Design and Delivery. He is previously the author of Stranger (2015) and was shortlisted for the DALRO Poetry Prize in 2017.

The book is available from the beginning of September through bookstores in South Africa and Namibia, distributed by Protea Boekhuis, and is from next week available overseas through the African Books Collective. RRP is R100.

uHlanga secures SA rights for Koleka Putuma's second collection

UPDATED 6 OCTOBER 2020: uHlanga will no longer be publishing this title.

uHlanga is happy to announce that we have acquired the South African rights for the as-yet-untitled second collection of poetry by Koleka Putuma. It follows the success of 2017’s Collective Amnesia, which won the 2018 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and catapulted Putuma into South Africa’s literary mainstream.

Showcasing a maturation of style and optics, while tackling the legacies of black femme erasure from arts and society, the book will be edited by uHlanga’s own Maneo Mohale.

More information about the title will be forthcoming closer to its release date, which, pandemics notwithstanding, will be in the latter half of 2021.

Saaleha Idrees Bamjee wins the 2020 Ingrid Jonker Prize for Poetry in English

We are delighted to share the news that Saaleha Idrees Bamjee is the winner of the 2020 Ingrid Jonker Prize for English Poetry for her collection, Zikr.

Zikr was shortlisted along with All the Places by Musawenkosi Khanyile, Everything is a Deathly Flower by Maneo Mohale and Skeptical Erections by Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta.

The prize, one of South Africa’s most prestigious literary awards, is alternately awarded on an annual basis to a debut volume of poetry in Afrikaans or English, the two languages in which Ingrid Jonker herself wrote. This year’s award is for volumes published in English in 2018 and 2019. 

According to the rules of the prize the judges have to be published poets, since it is a prize from poets to poets. This year the judges were Vonani Bila, Wendy Woodward and Sindiswa Busuku.

Nick Mulgrew, founder of uHlanga, says: ‘I’m very proud of Saaleha. Her collection came to me during uHlanga’s open submissions period in 2017, and I was immediately impressed by the texture of her poems, her photographer’s instinct for image, and her composure in writing about heart-wrenching experiences. 

‘Zikr is a testament to poetic restraint, steady hands, and gentle eyes – three rare and powerful things in these times.’

Three uHlanga authors shortlisted for 2020 Ingrid Jonker Prize

We are delighted to announce that Musawenkosi Khanyile, Maneo Mohale, and Saaleha Idrees Bamjee have been shortlisted for the 2020 Ingrid Jonker Prize, for their respective debut collections, All the Places, Everything Is A Deathly Flower, and Zikr.

The Ingrid Jonker Prize is one of South Africa’s most prestigious literary awards, awarded in alternate years to a first collection of poetry in English or Afrikaans, the two languages in which Jonker herself wrote.

uHlanga authors make up three quarters of this year’s awards shortlist, which is for collections published in 2018 and 2019. The fourth finalist is Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, whose collection Skeptical Erections was published by our colleagues at Deep South.

According to the rules of the prize the judges have to be published poets, since it is a prize from poets to poets. This year the judges were Vonani Bila, Wendy Woodward and Sindiswa Busuku, winner of the 2018 Prize. Ronel de Goede convenes the Ingrid Jonker Committee. Finuala Dowling is the convenor of the English prize. The other committee members are Vincent Oliphant, Kobus Moolman and Marius Crous. A former chairperson Danie Marais acts as advisor to the committee.

Congratulations to all the writers, as well to as the editors of the collections, Francine Simon (Everything Is A Deathly Flower) and Nick Mulgrew (All the Places and Zikr). The winner will be announced on 13 July 2020, and the winner will receive R10 000.