- 10:00 am
- - 11:00 am
- New School Hall
Joanne Joseph speaks to Jonny Steinberg about Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage – a shattering, revelatory new account of a relationship that shaped South Africa’s journey to freedom, drawing on explosive new material.
- 10:00 am
- - 11:00 am
- Old School Hall
Pippa Hudson explores inner and outer wilds with pioneering explorer Saray Khumalo (My Journey to the Top of the World) and Louisa Zondo (Dearest MaRiky), who climbed Mount Everest in the aftermath of the suicide of her son, rap star Riky Rick.
- 10:00 am
- - 11:00 am
- Church Hall
Lester Kiewit hits the road with Sihle Khumalo (bestselling author of Dark Continent My Black Arse) whose new book, Milk the Beloved Country, gives readers an uproarious guided tour of the cowntry’s place names and what they reveal about our past and present.
- 10:00 am
- - 12:00 pm
- Council Chambers
Learn the basics on how to plot a novel, develop strong characters and drive story, with writing coach and agent Sarah Bullen. We will unpack the key genre conventions of thrillers, crime, New Adult, Young Adult and romance fiction that writers need to construct a strong story.
Tickets at R250
- 10:00 am
- - 11:00 am
- Congregational Church
Dennis Davis interviews Mignonne Breier about her explosive book Bloody Sunday (winner of the 2022 Sunday Times Literary Award for non-fiction), an account of the Duncan Village mass shooting of 1952. How and why was it erased from struggle history?
- 11:30 am
- - 12:30 pm
- NG Church
Bruce Whitfield peers into the whirring brains of two of South Africa’s savviest sons, with the help of two unembedded biographers: Michael Vlismas (Elon Musk: Risking it All) and T.J. Strydom (Koos Bekker’s Billions).
– Sponsored by Ninety One SA
- 11:30 am
- - 12:30 pm
- New School Hall
Andrew Brown discovers how to catch a killer with former SAPS head profiler Gérard Labuschagne (Profile Diaries 2: From Crime Scene to Courtroom) and investigative writer Julian Jansen (Stellenbosch: Murder Town).
- 11:30 am
- - 12:30 pm
- Old School Hall
Kopano Ratele meets Marina Cantacuzino, who started The Forgiveness Project. Her book Forgiveness: An Exploration draws on stories of forgiveness from across the globe, including four from South Africa. What does it mean to forgive – and can one do it in the absence of apology?
- 11:30 am
- - 12:30 pm
- Church Hall
Melinda Ferguson meets Frans Meyer (Impossible Skies: Life with my brother, the artist, Walter Meyer) and Amanda Botha, close friend and confidant of Walter for 30 years. They honour the life and work of this brilliant and tormented landscape painter, who has often been described as South Africa’s Van Gogh.
- 11:30 am
- - 12:30 pm
- Congregational Church
Pumla Dineo Gqola chats with Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (The Theory of Flight, winner of the 2019 Sunday Times Award for fiction) about Ndlovu’s acclaimed third novel The Quality of Mercy – and how her books interrogate Zimbabwean history.
- 1:00 pm
- - 2:00 pm
- NG Church
John Maytham hunts for hope with writer and political activist Songezo Zibi, whose book Manifesto: A New Vision for South Africa proposes a grassroots foundation for ethical and accountable new politics.
– Sponsored by Ninety One SA
- 1:00 pm
- - 2:00 pm
- New School Hall
Sihle Khumalo meets Pie-Pacifique Kabalira-Uwase, whose book Witnessing tells his astonishing story of fleeing tragedy in Rwanda to South Africa, where he became a car guard – and went on to receive a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship and start a thriving company.
- 1:00 pm
- - 2:00 pm
- Old School Hall
Danielle Weakley gleans the secrets of masterful historical fiction from Rachel Joyce (NYT bestseller Miss Benson’s Beetle) and South Africa’s Penny Haw, whose historical fiction debut The Invincible Miss Cust brings to life the defiant journey of a pioneering female vet in Victorian Britain.
- 1:00 pm
- - 2:00 pm
- Church Hall
Wamuwi Mbao in conversation with Eve Fairbanks, whose book The Inheritors (winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for non-fiction 2023) traces three individual experiences of the South African transition. It’s a sweeping work of narrative reportage, spanning three decades of struggle, liberation and crisis.
- 1:00 pm
- - 2:00 pm
- Congregational Church
Nancy Richards heads for the bush with Françoise Malby-Anthony (The Elephants of Thula Thula) and Grant Fowlds (Rewilding Africa), who worked for many years with Malby-Anthony’s late husband, Lawrence Anthony, aka ‘The Elephant Whisperer’.