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Huckleberry Days: A Trouting, Shooting and Reading Life
by Garrett Evans
ISBN: 978-0-9802501-6-9
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages xii + 152
Launched March 2010 R147 (incl. VAT)
Readers will be charmed by Garrett Evans’s short vignettes in Huckleberry Days: A Trouting, Shooting and Reading Life picturing his favourite places, books and authors, and the engaging portraits of his relationships and friends, and the fishermen, hunters, writers and scholars he has known.
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Garrett’s writing covers experiences in the United States (where he was born), the United Kingdom, Europe and New Zealand, as well as South Africa, in all of which countries he has spent many Huckleberry days.
Garrett is more than an angler and shooter, he is a poet and philosopher aware not only of the beauty of the scenes he describes but of their passing. He is not only sensitively alert to the beautiful landscapes he fishes and shoots in, and the splendours of their dusks and dawns, but to the transience of all he sees.
Readers will recognise his craftsman’s skill with rod and gun, yet will find great pleasure in his depictions of his encounters with animals and the varied characters of the countryside he has met round the world. The short pieces, easy to read in a quiet moment, each hold attention with a concentrated, story-telling vividness.
The book presents insights into various fine writers, both literary, and as exemplars of outdoor writing like Denys Watkins-Pitchford (“BB”) and Henry Williamson.
This is an ideal bedside book, and will make a fine gift for anyone with a taste both for the outdoors and good writing.
All in all, Huckleberry Days: A Trouting, Shooting and Reading Life deserves to become a classic, both of nature writing and the art of the vignette.
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Search: Dogs to the Rescue in Wild Zimbabwe
by Jill Wylie
ISBN: 978-0-620-41937-6
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages ix + 185
Launched 24 October 2008 R160 (incl. VAT)
Jill Wylie has during her long life taught a series of dogs to search for and find lost or snared animals—mainly other dogs, but also domestic and wild animals—and the way she does this is a model of wise animal rearing and teaching. Search: Dogs to the Rescue in Wild Zimbabwe centres on one of these dogs, Javelin—the Dobermann heroine of the book.
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She describes Javelin’s youthful training, which begins early, at six weeks, showing how she guides the puppy’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm with praise and reward, and discipline without suffering, to develop her into a devoted and intelligent partner.
Most importantly, she explains why she allowed Javelin to be her natural self—she specially arranged that Javelin would keep her tail, that masterpiece of subtle dog communication, which was to play a vital role in the search and rescue work they would perform together. Javelin can thus be seen as an ambassador for Jill’s campaign (though this is not made explicit in the book) against docking and the mutilation of dogs for fashion and showing purposes.
Javelin’s story is not only about hair-raising rescues and touching relationships, but a training guide for dog owners everywhere.
This is Javelin’s story, an all-but-unknown thread in Zimbabwe’s turbulent history. It is a tale of extraordinary commitment and compassion, of a unique bond between woman and dog—a veritable cascade of rescues and escapades, sometimes dangerous, often funny, as frequently heartbreaking.
The book is presented as a series of short, related, and sequential episodes which dramatise first the early months and training of Javelin, and then detail actual search and rescue missions Jill and Javelin undertook. Numbers of these missions are magnificent victories against the odds, though some are sad failures when the odds are just too great.
The book is divided in two parts, “Imbeza” and “Vumba,” being the names of the two areas in Zimbabwe where the Wylie family live, and where the actions take place.
Jill Wylie has always reached out with compassion, especially to animals, domestic and wild. To fulfil her yearning she has created a small wildlife sanctuary in Zimbabwe’s Vumba Mountains that is a forest haven for a host of rehabilitated animals, from bushbuck to genets, baboons and mongooses, which is where the second part of Search: Dogs to the Rescue in Wild Zimbabwe takes place.
Search: Dogs to the Rescue in Wild Zimbabwe includes three fine black and white illustrations, by Susan Abraham of Grahamstown, of Javelin and her world.
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Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa
Selected and introduced by Laurence Wright
ISBN: 978-0-620-41938-3
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages xxx + 78
Launched 22 October 2008 R140 (incl. VAT)
Laurence Wright’s Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa presents a wealth of poems written by many famous poets, including Rudyard Kipling, Guy Butler, Oswald Mtshali, Chris Mann and Don Maclennan, from the 19th to the 20th centuries.
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Many of South Africa’s best poets have been inspired to write poems capturing railway scenes in all their variety, yet this diverse and fascinating array of poetry has never before been collected into a book for enjoyment and discussion.
The poems have been selected for their popular appeal and accessibility.
Laurence Wright’s Introduction is an informative and easy-to-read entry into the collection with helpful clues to interpretation.
Readers will find Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa a captivating collection of social memory, industrial history, nostalgia and poetic skill that unleashes visions shared by railway travellers the world over.
Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa includes four superb black and white photographs of South African steam trains and a station.
The growing success of railway tourism in South Africa—it caters to a strong local and international contingent of railway travellers and steam enthusiasts—is evidence of a significant interest in the subject.
Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa will make a perennial, uniquely South African Christmas or birthday gift.
Steam may be a thing of the past, but the legacy lingers—whistles echo in the memory and imagination, through kloofs and across wide Karoo plains, locomotives huff and chuff in rail yards emanating with the smell of steam, oil and burnt coal, and the clack and rhythm of rolling stock on rail beats in the back of the mind.
These memories connect the mystique of a bygone technological age with a way of life that evokes South Africa’s energetic, visionary, and often troubled passage into the modern age.
Prof. Peter Merrington, in a pre-publication review of Stimela: Railway Poems of South Africa, has written: “I read in awe and delight this collection of South African railway poems. The idea of making an anthology such as this seems to be fundamental South African commonsense; inspirational commonsense . . . .”
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Triptych
by Norman Morrissey
ISBN: 978-0-9802501-5-2
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages x + 105
Launched 30 June 2008 R120 (incl. VAT)
Triptych is Norman Morrissey’s major new poetry collection, journeying into more personal territory than his well-received and favourably-reviewed Dog Latin (Echoing Green Press 2006—see below for reviews on, and further information about this book, and the author).
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Triptych is a collection of one-hundred-and eighty-two new poems that will certainly make an impact upon South African poetry. The intellectual range and clarity of exposition makes this a collection which will appeal to poetry lovers and critics alike. In this three-part series Norman Morrissey creates an objective narrative voice to convey the experience of a disintegrating marriage, and gradual recovery, with nature’s help, of a measure of happiness.
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Word: Customized Hype
by Ewok (Iain Gregory Robinson)
ISBN 978-0-9802501-4-5
Paperback viii + 100 pages
Page size 110 mm X 180 mm
Launched 24 November 2007 R110 (incl. VAT)
Ewok—a.k.a. Iain Gregory Robinson, Creamy Ewok Baggends, Hused Whut?, and more—is the rising star in South African Hip Hop He has been seen and heard at numerous, sold-out shows in his hometown, Durban, and in Cape Town and Johannesburg. He has been widely praised by the public and the press for his gripping imagery, spellbinding verbal control, forceful vision, sharp insights, and critical voice.
Now, for the first time, by popular demand, his work comes off the stage and onto the page.
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Ewok’s Word: Customized Hype is a breakthrough publication. This new book is the first to catch in print the hip hopping, mind popping words of this prodigious, explosive talent.
Ewok is the challenging voice of the young South African generation, in schools and on the streets. Be sure of it, Ewok’s Hip Hop’s going to grow in recognition across South Africa as more hear and read his word.
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Yes, this is the Ewok as seen on SABC TV in Going Nowhere Slowly on 14 October 2007.
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This is the Ewok who came in the top five in the world at the prestigious Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, Holland in 2005.
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This is the Ewok who has won Hip and Slam Freestyle Battle Champion awards and Audience Choice awards round South Africa from 2004 to 2007.
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This is the Ewok who made the biggest splash ever for Hip Hop at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival and the Standard Bank National Schools Festival in Grahamstown 2006
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This is the Ewok who has recently won the Pick of the Festival award at the Musho! One Man/Two Man Play Festival in Durban 2007.
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This is the Ewok who has just independently released in September 2007 his first audio album Higher Flyer for Hire.
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This is the Ewok who has been nominated by The Mercury for a Durban Theatre Personality of the Year award (2007)
Quotes from the news media on Ewok’s live performances:
“Ewok is a dangerous talent . . .”
Daily News
“To watch Robinson perform is to watch a man in command, a man possessed.”
Sunday Tribune
“He talks and thinks in the same nano-second. He has trained his
brain to say what it thinks before it really thought it.”
Rootz Arts Music and Culture Magazine
“. . . meticulous, focused and passionate . . .”
Hype Magazine
Videos of Ewok and his work:
http://www.lifecheckydi.com/?page_id=142>http://www.lifecheckydi.com/?page_id=14 is an interview with Ewok about his non-profit Life Check Youth Development Initiative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-byClqWvPA>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-byClqWvPA is a music video detailing Ewok’s latest work in the recording studio, debuted at the Rocking the Daisies festival, in Cape Town, 10 October 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JO2DbGBpwo is a promotional video for Ewok’s one-man show Spitfire.
More Information and Interviews:
For details of Ewok’s Spitfire show, see
http://www.spitfireshow.wordpress.com
and for Ewok’s views on the relationship between his work and graffiti, see
http://www.kush.co.za/workarea/show.asp?articleno=604>http://www.kush.co.za/workarea/show.asp?articleno=604
For a recent interview, see
http://www.artsreview.co.za/stage/2009/07/02/ewok-from-childhood-disney-world-fantasies-to-becoming-a-prolific-writer-and-a-hip-hop-activist/
Reviews and Stories
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D. H. Lawrence around the World: South African Perspectives.
edited by Jim Phelps and Nigel Bell
ISBN: 978-0-9802501-1-4
Hardback
Total pages xxii + 335
Page size 230 mm x 150 mm
Launched 4 July 2007 R295 (incl. VAT)
South African literary studies are in transition in a changing educational context. Yet valuable work from the past can be lost and current contributions overshadowed in the worthy drive for educational transformation and the development of practical skills. D. H. Lawrence around the World: South African Perspectives is a compilation of articles on D. H. Lawrence by South African critics and scholars both within the country and abroad. Its retrospective sections reprint outstanding articles written in the last fifty years, and present reminiscences and perspectives from eminent scholars to ensure that a valuable body of work is preserved and offered for current appraisal. In its contemporary section five distinguished, peer-reviewed essays commissioned for the compilation reflect a diversity of current South African engagements with Lawrence’s works. The addenda list South African journal articles, and masters and doctoral dissertations/theses on Lawrence.
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Literary scholars and critics attuned to the current global condition will find D. H. Lawrence around the World: South African Perspectives an engaging retro- and prospective survey of an uncommon critical discourse on D. H. Lawrence, who, though often currently overlooked, has, in his penetrating insights into marginal cultures and the cultural unconscious, potentially a wide application for intercultural literary studies.
The book has an Introduction by the two editors, and is divided into five parts:
Retrospect, Reprinted Articles, New Essays, Poems, and Addenda.
Detailed Contents.
This collection of essays will be of value to local and international scholars and critics of D. H. Lawrence, and researchers into South African literary, academic, and cultural history and development. D. H. Lawrence around the World: South African Perspectives will be marketed in South Africa and internationally.
Jim Phelps is a specialized Lawrence scholar with international recognition, and Nigel Bell is a scholar and editor who has been responsible, inter alia, for volumes 11 to 16 of The English Academy Review (EAR) 1994-99. Together they have produced a challenging and pioneering book in South African literary studies which looks both backwards and forwards at this transitional time.
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Road Work
by Dan Wylie
ISBN: 978-0-9802501-3-8
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages viii + 82
Launched 30 June 2007 R110 (incl. VAT)
Road Work is Dan Wylie’s major new poetry collection, journeying beyond his
Ingrid Jonker and Olive Schreiner prize-winning The Road Out (1996).
In this breathtaking new collection we see how Dan Wylie works out his poems travelling along the open road, a global traveller in our diffracted time. Circumnavigate the earth with him—to Patagonian glaciers, along Canadian trails, on American railways, in quiet places in Britain and historic Greece, and across Australian deserts—walk unforgiving paths, listen to companion strangers met along the way, hear startling, foreign calls, find fresh meanings, see with different eyes, and return to discover anew the textures of home down Southern Africa’s roads. See not the places alone, but our current time infusing them.
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Road Work is a collection of fifty-six new poems all with a striking appeal. When you read them you’ll ask yourself which ones will appear in future South African anthologies—yes, you’ll find them that good. This book will certainly make an impact upon South African poetry.
Dan Wylie is a writer of rare and diverse talents. Apart from writing prize-winning poetry, he is the author of the groundbreaking history book, Shaka: Myth of Iron (2006), and of the acclaimed autobiography set in the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean War, Dead Leaves (2002).
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Men, Rivers and Canoes
by Ian Player, Second edition
ISBN: 978-0-9802501-2-1
Launched January 2007 R240 (incl. VAT)
This new edition is published in fine quality hardback, with a dust jacket and
the original text, maps (in an envelope inside the back cover), photos,
illustrations and drawings. Pages: xxvi + 238 (264 in total). Size 170 mm X 245
mm.
Valuable new material included is a Preface to the new edition by Ian Player;
Forewords by Colonel Jack Vincent, Inkosi Zibuse Mlaba, Graeme Pope-Ellis and
Willem van Riet; a history of the Dusi’s far-reaching social engagement with the
people of the Umsindusi and Umgeni River valleys; all the official Dusi results
from 1951 to 2006 (fifty-five races), and including the Non-stop Dusi; a list of
all 10000 plus Dusi finishers from 1951 to 2006; an outline of key developments
in the growth of the Dusi; statistics of entries; and more.
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Ian Player started the Dusi Canoe Marathon in the early 1950s and then wrote superbly to
tell how it all began. All modern canoeing in South Africa stems from his great
pioneering expeditions. To appreciate the great traditions of canoeing in South
Africa this treasure of local history is a must have for canoeists and general
readers alike.
The first edition of Men, Rivers and Canoes was published in 1964, and has long been out of print. It is
most fitting therefore that a new edition be published to inspire contemporary
readers’ and canoeists’ appreciation of the sport’s roots and traditions. Though
his vision was great, he never dreamed how the race would expand as it has.
Seeded by his pioneering adventure, canoeing has flourished and grown into the
spectacular and popular sport that captures South Africa’s imagination today.
The book also recounts the first canoe
expeditions down the untamed Umzimkulu, Umkomaas and Pongola rivers. Here we
read the story of wilderness trails of a different kind, as we paddle into the
maelstroms and calms of the river wilds of South Africa.
Men, Rivers and Canoes is more than about the Dusi and canoeing. Ian Player’s vivid story-telling takes
us into the human spirit, wild nature and South Africa’s rich history. This is
borne out by extracts from newspaper reviews of the first edition.
“an enthralling and fascinating account of the tough, rugged
sport of canoeing and some of the young men who . . . have risked their necks in the boiling rapids of South Africa’s rivers”
Natal Mercury 15 August 1964
“every foot of the way an African river singing an African
song, that sometimes sounds beautiful but all the time has a rhythm that
vibrates with menace”
“this is a piece of Africana as well as a most interesting
book for those who appreciate the African outdoors”
Sunday Chronicle 27 September
1964
“people might not think a game ranger has that sort of
writing in him but the fallacy has been exploded by Ian Player”
“this is easily one of the best adventure stories to come out
of Africa in years”
Pretoria News 5 November 1964
“the autobiography of a young man awakening to the beauty and
mystery of nature”
Evening Post 16 September 1964
Ian Player is a legend in his own time. Born in Johannesburg in 1927, educated at St.
John’s College, he served in World War II in the 6th South African
Armoured Division in Italy. Following a stint as a gold miner, he moved to
KwaZulu-Natal in 1950 where he has carved out a name in history as a canoeing
path-breaker, famous game ranger and conservationist, internationally renowned
champion of the wilderness and innovative environmental educator.
He can justly
be called the founding father of canoeing in South Africa. His 1950 expedition
reconnoitring the daunting path from Pietermaritzburg to Durban down the
Umsindusi and Umgeni Rivers led to the establishment of the Dusi Canoe Marathon.
He won the first three races from 1951 to 1954 (there was no race in 1952),
helped found the Natal Canoe Club and launched canoeing not only as a
competitive sport, but a recreation combining exploration, adventure, wilderness
encounter and comradeship.
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Dog Latin
by Norman Morrissey
ISBN: 0-9802501-0-2
Paper back
Page size A5
Total pages x + 29
Launched September 2006 R80 (incl. VAT)
This is a collection of 61 poems capturing the poet's most recent phase of environmental curiosity. The first poem in the collection, "Settler Country," was awarded a DALRO prize when it first appeared in New Coin 39.1 2003.
Norman Morrissey is quietly gaining recognition for his distinct poetic voice in South Africa today. His natural vision unites inner and outer worlds into one, laconically catching us by surprise. He is especially noted for his nature poetry, which is underlain by a Spartan philosophy but light-hearted wit.
His work has an immediate appeal both to a wider readership and those serious about poetry.
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Other books by Norman Morrissey:
Seasons Alice: Lovedale, 1999
God’s Spies Privately published for sale by the Wilderness Leadership
Foundation, 2001
St Mark’s Diary Port Elizabeth: Seaberg, 2004
Collections containing poetry by Norman Morrissey:
Echo Poets 1989 Alice: Echo Poets, 1989
Echo Poets 1993 Alice: Echo Poets, 1993
Cast Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1996
Tyume Alice: Fort Hare Journal of Creative Writing 1996/7 no. 1
Tyume Alice: Fort Hare Journal of Creative Writing 1997/8 no. 2
Timespan Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1997
Scenter Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1998
Tyume Alice: Fort Hare Journal of Creative Writing 1998/9 no. 3
Tyume Alice: Fort Hare Journal of Creative Writing 2000 no. 4
Holdall Hogsback: Seaberg, 2002
Passover Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2003
Dispositions Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2004
Threads Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2005
The Living Years of Vinyl Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2006
Amathole Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2007
Norman Morrissey has been published in these poetry journals:
Carapace (Cape Town); Fidelities (Pietermaritzburg); Illuminations (Charleston, South Carolina); New Coin (Grahamstown); New Contrast (Cape Town); and Other Poetry (University of Leicester).
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Sunshine and Shadows: A Collection of South African Short Stories
by Abel Phelps
ISBN: 0-9584711-1-8
Paperback
Page size A5
Total pages viii + 145
Launched May 2004 R120 (incl. VAT)
This is a collection of uniquely South African short stories, set mainly in the farming world of the north-eastern Cape Karoo and the southern Orange Free State during the first half of the twentieth century.
Abel Phelps has bound together a volume of his life experience that reads as a memoir of the people and land that inspired him. The straightforward style and sometimes playful, sometimes sombre, morality reflects his deep empathy with the characters acting out their lives in the world he has reflected. Reading the stories is like discovering a treasured family journal, and, with reconciliation in the face of suffering often an underlying theme, the stories speak to South Africa today. Indeed, the best of them are classics.
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"I enjoyed reading your stories, and so did my wife, and so did my secretary. I hope the book sells as well as it deserves." GUY BUTLER, late Professor and Head of the English Department at Rhodes University, founder of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, distinguished scholar, poet, and writer of plays, short stories, and a three-volume autobiography.
"I found them all delightful, short, simple, and sincere....I really did enjoy reading them, and of course, knowing Bethulie, Norval's Pont, Burghersdorp and Steynsburg made me identify even more. You must carry on writing short stories." PATRICK MYNHARDT, actor, especially acclaimed for his one-man presentations of the short stories of Herman Charles Bosman, featuring the famous character Oom Schalk Lourens of the Groot Marico.
"A sunny, open-hearted quality pervades his work, though, just off to the side, are the shadows. Sunshine and Shadows is a fine collection of stories, well told." RICK ANDREW, author of Buried in the Sky (Penguin, 2001).
A number of these short stories have been broadcast by the SABC; anthologized in Hippogriff New Writing 1990 (Hippogriff Press, 1990), and in Writing from South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1995); and included in The English Academy Review, nos. 14 (December 1997) and 16 (December 1999).
Abel Phelps was born in 1910, had his early life in England, and migrated to South Africa in 1927. Until his marriage in 1938 he lived and worked on farms in the Eastern Cape, the Orange Free State, and Natal. After marrying he lived mostly in Pietermaritzburg, bringing up his family there, working as an artisan and technician. He wrote numbers of short stories over some thirty years, from the 1950s to the 1980s. Sunshine and Shadows is a selection. Abel Phelps lived to 98 years old, and died in Cape Town in November 2008.
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