First authors announced for Open Book Festival 2017Brought to you by the Book Lounge and The Fugard Theatre, Open Book Festival will be presented from Wednesday, 6 September 2017 - Sunday, 10 September 2017, once again offering a world-class selection of book launches, panel discussions, workshops, masterclasses, readings, performances and more. The event, which also includes the popular Comics Fest, #cocreatePoetica, children's and outreach programmes, takes place at The Fugard Theatre, District Six Homecoming Centre and The Book Lounge in Cape Town. Open Book Festival has established itself as one of South Africa’s most innovative and leading book festivals. Last year, nearly 10,000 people attended the Festival’s 125 events featuring 251 authors and it has been shortlisted twice for the London Book Fair Excellence Awards. It is committed to creating a platform to celebrate South African writers, as well as hosting top international authors. The Festival strives to instil an interest in and love of reading among young attendees, while the programme is designed to engage, entertain and inspire conversations among Festival goers long after the event. “In addition to announcing the first round of incredible international authors for Open Book Festival 2017, we are inviting people to help be a part of it and launching a Thundafund campaign for this year’s festival,” says Festival Director, Mervyn Sloman. “Anyone who works on major events will have an understanding of the budgetary challenges and current financial climate that are part and parcel of the sector. Open Book is no different and while we continue to work with key sponsors, we are inviting people who recognise the value of the festival to get involved and support us, so we can retain our independence and continue to put on an event of the scale and calibre visitors have come to expect. You can support the campaign for as little as R100 and every Rand makes a difference.” “We are excited to be announcing our first round of international authors and have again compiled a useful guide of their books so you can start reading now.” Author: Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Nigeria)Books include: Stay With Me Author: Paul Beatty (USA)Books include: Slumberland, Tuff, The White Boy Shuffle and The Sellout. Also poetry book Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce. Editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor Author: Maylis de Kerangal (France)Books include: Mend the Living, Birth of a Bridge; the novella Tangente vers l'est Author: Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)Books include: The Book of Memory and short story collections, An Elegy for Easterly and Rotten Row Author: Nathan Hill (USA)Books include: The Nix Author: Elina Hirvonen (Finland)Books include: When I Forgot, Farthest from Death, When Time Runs Out Author: Scaachi Koul (Canada)Books include: Her debut collection of essays in One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter Author: Ali Land (UK)Books include: Good Me Bad Me Author: Ken Liu (USA)Books include: The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms, The Paper Menagerie Author: Fiston Mwanza Mujila (DRC)Books include: Tram 83 Author: Chibundu Onuzo (Nigeria)Books include: The Spider King’s Daughter, Welcome to Lagos Author: Malin Persson Giolito (Sweden)Books include: Quicksand, the first of her novels to be translated into English Author: Carl Frode Tiller (Norway)Books include: The Encircling trilogy, SkrĂ„ninga (The Slope) Author: Iman VerjeeBooks include: Who Will Catch Us As We Fall, In Between Dreams Author: Alex Wheatle (UK)Books include: Crongton Knights, Liccle Bit, ,i>Brixton Rock, East of Acre Lane, The Seven Sisters, Island Songs, Checkers, The Dirty South Author: Zoe Whittall (Canada)Books include: The Best Kind of People, Holding Still for as Long as Possible The final programme will be available in early August, at which point bookings can be made here. The seventh Open Book Festival will take place from 6 to 10 September at The Fugard Theatre, D6 Homecoming Centre, The Book Lounge and (Other venue), from 10:00 to 21:00 each day. For further information visit the Open Book Festival website. |