Zakes Mda Introduces his New Book

Launching

Zakes Mda – Guest Speaker

Thursday 7^th March at 12 noon for 12h30

The Grill Room at Kelvin Grove

We are privileged to have celebrated author Zakes Mda with us at our next get together. 

He was born in the Eastern Cape but spent his early childhood in Soweto, finishing his schooling in Lesotho.  He commutes between the USA, where he is Professor Emeritus at Ohio University, and South Africa, where he is Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of the Western Cape; a beekeeper in the Eastern Cape (running a project he established in 2000 with rural women), and a director of NeoZane, an animation film production company. He is also an Honorary Patron of the Market Theatre and the Jozi Book Fair.

He is a prolific writer of novels, plays, poems and articles for academic journals and newspapers. His writing has been translated into twenty languages. Mda is a recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga.  In 2017 his novel Little Suns won the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize.

THE BOOK

Zakes Mda’s glorious new novel draws on the true history of ‘Farini’s Friendly Zulus’, men who were taken to Britain and then to America as performing curiosities. The novel opens in 1885 with the hero, Em-Pee, in wintry New York, contemplating with distaste the melodramatic ‘savage’

performance of ‘The Wild Zulu’, in stark contrast to his own true history, so little understood here: His Zulu colleagues call him Mpi, which has become Em-Pee to the English-speakers.’ His true name is not the only loss in this far, foreign country, and he is seen as little more than a freak show

act – though at least he is not kept in a cage like the beautiful Dinka Princess, with her gold-painted Papier-mâché crown, and a patchwork cape of Mink, Otter and Kodiak fur. For Em-Pee, it is love at first sight; though she is not free to love anyone back…

So begins one of Zakes Mda’s most striking stories, a short novel but one that packs a powerful punch and will stir up strong feeling in its depiction of terrible, real injustices and indignities, while at the same time also celebrating the vigour and ingenuity of the creative spirit, and the transformative power of love.

  

The cost per person is R350 which includes service and wine. Please either telephone 021 685 8016 or get in touch by email sandybailey@telkomsa.net or more information or to book.

A Fast-Paced, Relevant, Standalone Thriller - Launch

Launching

Guest Speakers            Author duo Michael Stanley

Where                          The Pavilion, Kelvin Grove

When                           Thursday 14 February

Time                            12 noon for 12h30

Yes, it’s a Valentine’s Day get-together.

The award writing team, Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) will be with us to present their new book, a gripping crime thriller, set in South Africa against the underworld of wildlife poaching, in particular, the illegal trade of Rhino horn.

Michael and Stanley will share their experience of how co-authoring works as well as some quite gritty research in developing this novel.

The Authors

Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both were born in South Africa and have worked in academia and business. Their Detective Kubu series has been critically acclaimed and is an international bestseller, picking up multiple awards since first publication. Dead of Night marks a new departure for the duo.

The Book

Freelance journalist Crystal Nguyen heads to South Africa to research a feature on Rhino hunting… for National Geographic with devastating results.  Within a week she’s been hunting poachers, hunted by their bosses and then arrested in connection with a murder, she goes undercover in Vietnam trying to discover the truth before she’s exposed by the local mafia.  The South African authorities need to be convinced to take action before it’s too late both for the Rhino and for her. She has a powerful story to tell if she survives long enough to tell it…

Dead of Night is a stunning thriller which exposes one of the most vicious conflicts on the African continent . . .  you won’t be able to put down.

The Pavilion is a lovely room and parking is plentiful and safe.  The price for a two-course meal which includes wine and service is R350. 

For more information or to book telephone 021 685 8016 or email.sandybailey@tekomsa.net 

This is what has been said about the book which has just had its UK launch.

‘A wonderful, original voice – McCall Smith with a dark edge

and even darker underbelly’

- Peter James

‘Under the African sun, Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu investigates crimes

as dark as the darkest of Nordic Noir. Call it Sunshine Noir, if you will – a must

Read’

- Yrsa Sigurdardottir

‘Detective David ‘Kubu’ Bengu is a wonderful creation, complex and beguiling.

The exotic smells and sounds of Botswana fill the pages as well as the changes 

and struggles of a country brimming with modern technology yet fiercely clinging to

old traditions. Compelling and deceptively written...’

-New York Journal of Books

_________________________________________________________________________________

Pieter Dirk Uys - Echo of a Noise - His Memoir

Introducing

Lunch at The Grill Room, Kelvin Grove

Tuesday 4^th December 2018 at 12 noon for 12h30

How fabulous that Cape Town’s favourite son, Pieter Dirk Uys will be with us to introduce his new book The Echo of Noise – A Memoir of Then and Now. 

“PDU un-powdered. No props, no false eyelashes, no high heels, no security blankets.”

This poignant and intimate memoir, revealing the person behind the persona, is both moving and hilarious. Pieter-Dirk Uys has published two previous memoirs: Elections and Erections (2002), focusing on AIDS, and Between the Devil and the Deep (2005), focusing on his theatre career. This time, he recalls his childhood and family, his forbidding and musically driven father, his brilliant but disturbed mother, his sister the child prodigy, and Sannie Abader, the woman who worked in the Uys household “Sonskyn” in Homestead Way, Pinelands, a second mother to Uys. Also featuring his Afrikaner matriarch “Paarlse ouma” and his strudel baking German Oma, his friendship with Sophia Loren, his invention of Evita Bezuidenhout, and the joys, and sorrows of his remarkable life.

The Agony of Theo & Flora

                                                                

Meet Author Mark Winkler

Luncheon at Buitenverwachting Restaurant

Thursday 22^ndNovember 2018 – 12 Noon for 12h30

Guest speaker Mark Winkler is the author of critically acclaimed novels; An Exceptionally Simple Theory (of Absolutely Everything); Wasted and The Safest Place You Know (shortlisted for the Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize). His work is also published in the United States and in France. He lives in Cape Town.

Winkler was born in Johannesburg and grew up in what is now Mpumalanga; he attended high school at St. Alban's College, Pretoria and graduated from Rhodes University with a Bachelor of Journalism in. Like the main character in his new book, critically acclaimed writer Mark Winkler was also moved to create a novel after discovering a box of old letters.

The Book

In Theo & Flora, Winkler tells the story of a stalled novelist called Charlie Wasserman who, when his investment-banker wife divorces him, finds among her belongings a box of letters. Written between 1940 and 1944, the letters reveal a love affair between her grandfather, Theo, a forty-something lawyer at the time, and Flora, a much younger journalist.

Theo & Flora is a narrative enriched by Cape Town’s Jewish community at the time, with cameos by prominent South African visual artists like Irma Stern, Jean Welz and Gregoire Boonzaier, and numerous references to classical music that complements the book’s elegant prose. Not only a period piece, the novel also registers the world’s current political climate – from immigration politics to issues of cultural appropriation. Written with wit and poignancy, Theo & Flora is as moving as it is entertaining and the novel is a gratifying addition to this author’s body of work.

Talented Chef/Patron Edgar Osojnik will be creating a delicious gastronomic delight for our palates which will be accompanied by Buitenverwachting’s elegant wines.  The menu will be circulated as soon as I have it.  The price per person is R440 fully inclusive.

Please contact Sandy on email sandybailey@telkomsa.net or telephone 021 685 8016 for any further information or to book.

Meet Charismatic Author Mike Nicol

Delicious Lunch at Buitenverwachting Restaurant

Thursday 11^th October at 12 noon for 12h30

Born in Cape Town, guest speaker Mike Nicol was educated here and in Johannesburg, where he began his working life as a journalist. During the 1980s he moved back to Cape Town and worked on the magazine Leadership for a number of years. Towards the end of that decade, he published his first novel, The Powers That Be, resigned from the magazine and began what he calls "the scary life of a freelance journalist and writer." 

His genre: Thriller

September saw the publication of Mike Nicol’s exhilarating new thriller Sleeper. Set in locations in and around the city of Cape Town, the book features cool cat surfer PI Fish Pescado and Vicki Kahn, a gutsy local spy who has excellent taste in wine… she drinks Buitenverwachting, she is Fish’s girlfriend, both are well-known Nicol characters.

About the book:

The first bombshell Sleeper drops is the killing of the minister of energy. Then the cop investigating the murder commits suicide. Fearing a conspiracy, the minister’s lover hires PI Fish Pescado to find the killer. Then she goes missing. And Fish is being stonewalled by the cops because…

… In the dark shadows of Cape Town, there’s another game being played out. A complex one involving Iranian agents, the theft of highly enriched uranium, and the kidnapping of a top scientist. Ex-spy Vicki Kahn is bribed by her former handler to track the terrorists. The hunt is deadly and nothing is what it seems. A sleeper has been awoken… ISIS is involved. So is the CIA. There is chatter of a dirty bomb headed for Europe.

The price per person for a gourmet luncheon including Buitenverwachting’s elegant wines is R440 per person fully inclusive.  For more information or to book, please telephone Sandy on 021 685 8016 or get in touch by email sandybailey@telkomsa.net.

Looking forward to a delightful afternoon.

Enumerations by Maire Fisher

Launching a Brilliant Local Book

 Author Mάire Fisher was the guest speaker at a luncheon at Buitenverwachting Restaurant on Thursday 20 September.

Firstly, we celebrated the reopening of the Restaurant after its winter break. A well-rested Edgar Osojnik Chef/Patron prepared a delicious luncheon.

Secondly, we celebrated a local author who has written an amazing book The Enumerations. 

Mάire Fisher lives in Fish Hoek and agreed to be the guest speaker at a September luncheon.  She is a writer and editor, who is a member of The Grail Writing Retreats, her work has been published in anthologies and on various websites. She is also the author of Birdseye. She is married with two sons.

Penguin Random House South Africa sent me her book to have a look at. I couldn’t put it down. It is fascinating and gripping. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her!

The Book

The Enumerations tells the story of seventeen-year-old Noah Groome, who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Noah is caught up in a personal prison, unable to tell anyone about a dark force that is threatening to engulf him.

It is not only Noah that is suffering, but Mάire has also created a touching family drama that includes Noah’s mother, Noah’s emotionally blank father Dominic who has his own demons and Noah’s sister Maddie, his ally and protector, all profoundly affected by her brother’s disorder.

A book about mental health and familial bonds, it is a sensitive, warm-hearted novel which keeps one on the edge…   Professor Dan Joseph Stein, BSc, MB ChB, FRCPC, FRSSAf, PhD, DPhil who is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT and Director of the MRC Unit on “Anxiety and Stress Disorders has read the book and approved Mάire’s research on OCD.

A delicious lunch was enjoyed by all.

Sandy Bailey

Francoise Malby Anthony an Intrepid Woman

Launching – An Elephant In My Kitchen

Thursday 30th August at 12 noon for 12h30 at Catharina’s Restaurant, Steenberg Farm

Guest Speaker – Francoise Malby Anthony

A chic Parisienne, Françoise never expected to find herself living on a South African game reserve. But when she fell in love with renowned conservationist Lawrence Anthony her life took an unexpected turn.

Lawrence died in 2012 and Françoise was left to face the tough reality of running Thula Thula without him, even though she knew very little about conservation. She was short on money, poachers were threatening their rhinos, and one of their elephants was charging Land Rovers on game drives and terrifying guests. There was no time to mourn when Thula Thula’s human and animal family were depending on her.

How Françoise survived and Thula Thula thrived is beautifully described in this charming, funny and poignant book. Their elephant herd, rescued by Lawrence, shared Françoise's grief at his passing but over time forged a new relationship with her.

Meanwhile, Françoise fulfilled her dream of building a rescue centre for orphaned rhinos and other wildlife.

In Françoise’s words: “As I celebrate thirty years in South Africa, I have learned never to give up, to hold on to my dreams, always to search for a silver lining, and that by looking forward, the difficulties of the past eventually fade out of sight.”

This book is funny and insightful, full of wonderful characters, both human and animal. It is co-authored by Katja Willemsen who has written several fiction titles previously. This is her first work of non-fiction.

We return to Catharina’s Restaurant for this our 9^th Birthday. The Club was launched at Catharina’s on Thursday 20^th August 2009.  Chef has created a superb menu for us which will be accompanied by elegant wines from Steenberg.

The price per person is R420 which includes Wine and Service

For more information or to book please telephone 021 685 8016 or email sandybailey@telkomsa.net as always it is first come first served.

Pan Macmillan is proud to be publishing the powerful sequel to the bestselling memoir The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony