Cradock is set for its annual Karoo Writers’ Festival where writer Tony Jackman will introduce his “audacious” new play and Xhosa literary talent Akhona Mafani will perform a selection of work.
The festival will run from Thursday to Sunday July 19 to 22, with the first day dedicated to nurturing young local talent in partnership with the Avbob Poetry Project.
Sixty high school pupils who want to write or perform in Xhosa, Afrikaans or English will spend the day with six expert coaches, workshopping poetry for healing, under the umbrella “Words of Comfort”.
Mafani is the youngest of the coaches and, at 20, already a well-established literary figure. He was only 10 when he heard poets reciting their work at the National Arts Festival and performance poetry has been his consuming passion ever since.He featured on the Main Programme of this year’s arts festival, guiding others into the intersection of performance poetry and digital animation.
Karoo Writers’ Festival audiences can experience the depth of his talent during Open Microphone sessions at 4pm on the Friday. Open Mic is repeated at the same time on the Saturday, but with different material and writers.
An early Friday supper will be followed by a staged reading at Karoo Brew at 7.30pm of Cradock-based writer Tony Jackman’s new one-actor play,
Mein Camp, which he describes as “camp, audacious and politically irreverent”. “The Audacious Struggle of Le Clerq Goldberg is a piece of cabaret theatre in the tradition of the Weimar Republic-era Kabarett of the late 1920s and early 1930s – camp, audacious and politically irreverent,” Jackman said. Johannesburg theatre-maker J Bobs Tshabalala is the dramaturge and producer for the reading, which promises “all the things the play would have, only read: Costume. Lights. Props. A presentation towards a full production”. It will be read/performed by actor Emil Lars as Le Clerq Goldberg, the central character. Friday is also the anniversary of the Cradock Four funeral – the day chosen by Lukhanyo and Abigail Calata for the Eastern Cape launch of their book, My
Father Died for This. It is the story of an exceptional family that prevailed in the face of terrible adversities. The spirit of the patriarch, Canon James Calata, hovers over the pages. He named his grandson Fort (Inqaba) and lived to stand at his graveside after Fort and his comrades were murdered by security police. Fort and Nomonde Calata’s son had been born just three years earlier and JA Calata had named him Lukhanyo – ‘a light to our family’. The book brings the reader to the present with Lukhanyo’s own sacrifice for justice – he was one of the SABC 8 who risked their livelihood to expose censorship inside the national broadcaster.
The festival honours another great son of Cradock, Guy Butler, with talks by Beth Wyrill and Professor Emeritus Malvern van Wyk Smith on the Friday, among other highlights. Night owls can enjoy a Late
Night Ramble with Cradock legend Toast Coetzer and the Buckfever Underground band, Christiaan Bakkes and Marcia Fargoli (the Cosmic Puffadders from Canon Rocks) and other pop-up performers. This will be repeated with new material on the Saturday night.
On the Saturday the focus shifts to The Shed precinct, with market stalls to include a pop-up festival book table and individual tables by Eve Clayton, Alan Elsdon and other authors. Speakers will include novelist Jo-Anne Richards, Cradock poet Clinton V du Plessis, Martin Welz (on 25 years of editing Noseweek magazine), Coetzer and Alice Inggs on
Writing Landscape, and GraaffReinet chef Gordon Wright on his new book Karoo Food.
Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit will close the day with a talk on their new book, Moving to the Platteland – Life in Small Town South Africa.
On the Sunday, the entire festival will adjourn to Dirosie Game Lodge on Buffelshoek farm. Brunch will be served and midlands farming personality Errol Moorcroft will launch his book of anecdotes – The Wool-classer, the Shearer and the Golden Fleece.
● The full programme and details of a low-price day pass offer are at www.karoowritersfestival.weebly.com