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A CELEBRATION OF BOOKS & WRITING
ABOUT
THIS INAUGURAL three-day Festival is intended to foster
a vibrant
culture of reading by bringing together a group of excellent,
approachable writers, a famous publisher
and one of the world’s most acclaimed wine experts to talk to readers
at informal gatherings in the Franschhoek village centre.
Our ultimate goal is to support the drive for a new community library
by creating a buzz about books.
Starting small, we aim to make this an exciting annual event that grows
into an important celebration of books and writing. Director Christopher Hope is a major South
African writer, and we are proud to have Marlene van Niekerk, Siri
Hustvedt, Ivan Vladislavić, Lebo Mashile, Chris van Wyk, Fred Khumalo,
Max du Preez, Jancis Robinson, Mike van Graan and fifteen more highly regarded writers, poets
and
publishers on our programme.
The invited writers, both local and international, will give talks and readings and discuss their work
with recently published and up-and-coming South African writers, at
intimate venues that will encourage questions from readers.
Poets will read from their works, the acclaimed new movie The Last King of Scotland –
already featured in the Golden Globe Awards and the Oscar line-up –
will be presented by the author of the book, Giles
Foden, and there will be classical music interludes.
By starring reading as an enjoyable and accessible activity, the
Festival will promote literacy and learning and the love of books. The
visiting writers will interact with local schools to enthuse learners,
who will also partake in a valley-wide
poetry competition where winners will have their poems printed on
posters for all to see.
It is also intended to provide a small bursary for a promising writer
to be able to write fulltime for a few months, without distractions.
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In an age when so
much of our culture is pre-packaged,
chewed into ready-to-digest electronic sound bites, literary festivals
offer a
point of human contact, an opportunity to listen, ask and debate that
is reminiscent of an earlier age, but a vast improvement
on it.
Ben Macintyre, in The Times
A book can change your life. You can read yourself out
of poverty.
Annari van der Merwe,
Publisher
The book has
great advantages over the computer: it
is
light and it’s
cheap. That it has changed little in over 400 years suggests an
uncommonly apt design. You can drop a book in the bathtub, dry it out
on the radiator and still read it. You can put it in the attic,
pull it out 200 years later, and probably decipher the words. However
much dictionaries and encyclopaedias might be superseded, a
well-thumbed paperback blowing in a beach breeze represents a
technological stronghold the computer may never invade.
D T Max
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