Announcing Dayspring, a memoir by C. J. Driver edited by J. M. Coetzee

Karavan Press and uHlanga are proud to announce the release of Dayspring, a memoir by the renowned South African-English poet and novelist C. J. Driver, edited and with a foreword by Nobel Prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee.

The book releases on 1 July 2024 in South Africa.

Dayspring is a recollection of Driver’s South African youth – his childhood as a reverend’s son in Kroonstad and Grahamstown-Makhanda preceding his extraordinary student years at the University of Cape Town, during which he edited the student newspaper Varsity and became enmeshed in radical student politics.

As president of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students, Driver was detained by the security police, tortured and imprisoned in solitary confinement in Cape Town. Even after fleeing to England, Driver remained a bête-noire for the apartheid authorities, with ex-president B. J. Vorster keeping personal notes on Driver’s activities.

But all that comes later in his life. Dayspring is a tender and deeply personal book, offering an intimate picture of a family coming to terms with the losses of the Second World War. It is the story of a father and son recognising their differing beliefs, and of a young man navigating the joys and pitfalls of romance. As a direct descendant of the 1820 Settlers, Driver examines the contradictory beliefs and institutions of the South Africa he grew up in – particularly its boarding schools – with unique insight and humour.

Throughout the reader discovers the moments of inspiration, failure and literary exchange that were crucial to the development of Driver’s fiction, celebrated internationally during his lifetime, as well as his poetry, which, even before his death in 2023, has been lauded as one of the most significant bodies of work by a modern South African poet.

In Dayspring, we are witness to the formation of a sensitive, incisive intellect; someone who did not simply engage with the world through literature, but faced up to it, too.

Driver’s final collection of poems, Still Further, was previously published by uHlanga in 2020

C. J. DRIVER, always known as Jonty, was born in Cape Town in 1939. He was the author of ten collections of poetry, five novels, and numerous works of non-fiction. President of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students in 1963–4, Jonty was detained in solitary confinement by the security police, subsequently fleeing to England. He became stateless and his writings were banned. His professional life was spent as a schoolmaster in Hong Kong and England.

Jonty died in England in 2023. Since then, he has been hailed as one of South Africa’s major modern poets.

J. M. COETZEE was born in Cape Town in 1940 and studied at the University of Cape Town from 1957 to 1961. Between 1972 and 2000, he held a series of positions on the staff at UCT. His writings have won numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. He currently lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

FOR REVIEW COPIES contact Karina Szczurek, publisher, Karavan Press, karavanpress@outlook.com

FOR INTERVIEWS AND PRESS INQUIRIES contact Nick Mulgrew, director, uHlanga, nick@uhlangapress.co.za

CJ 'Jonty' Driver, 1939–2023

I am greatly saddened to share news of the passing of Charles Jonathan Driver, known always as Jonty. He died in Bristol on Sunday 21 May 2023 after a short illness.

Jonty was a giant, not simply in stature. As a young man, his involvement in the student movement against apartheid – in particular his association with the African Resistance Movement and as his time as president of the National Union of South African students – resulted in a month-long detention in solitary confinement. On his release he immediately moved to England with the help of Professor Robert Birley, eventually enrolling at Trinity College, Oxford. While reading for his MA, the South African government refused to renew Jonty’s passport, and he effectively became stateless. For more than twenty years he could not return to the land of his birth.

Jonty eventually made the decision to stay in England permanently, becoming a British citizen, and building a family and professional life there. In 1976 he became a research fellow at the University of York, and for twenty-three years he was a headmaster in Hong Kong, at Berkhamsted School and, most notably, Wellington College. In sum he published ten collections of poems, (most recently Still Further: New Poems, published by uHlanga), five novels (four of which are still in print from Faber), and numerous works of non-fiction and essay.

It is difficult to summarise a life such as Jonty’s, more so immediately after his death. The Jonty I knew was a man who spoke, wrote, and thought with uncommon sensitivity and moral clarity. To my mind, he is one of the finest poets South Africa has produced.

Jonty is survived by his wife Ann, his children Dominic, Dax and Tamlyn, and his grandchildren. My thoughts are with them and his many loved ones at this time.

Thanks Jonty. Rest well, friend.

– Nick Mulgrew, Cape Town, 22 May 2023

Jacques Coetzee wins 2022 Olive Schreiner Prize for Poetry

Only months after winning the 2022 Ingrid Jonker Prize for his debut collection An Illuminated Darkness, Jacques Coetzee has this week been awarded the 2022 Olive Schreiner Prize for Poetry.

The Olive Schreiner Prize is awarded annually by the English Academy of South Africa to emerging writers in the fields of drama, prose, and poetry, rotating between those categories in a three-year cycle. Since 1961 it has been awarded to many luminaries of South African literature, including Oswald Mtshali, Douglas Livingstone, Antjie Krog, Lionel Abrahams, and many more.

Congratulations to Jacques for such an amazing feat.