Several years ago, when I was a struggling journalist with serious aspirations to be a “real” writer, I had a part-time job in a bookshop, Central News Agency in the Carlton Centre. One or two shifts a week, or over the weekend, I worked in the newsstand/bookshop in the lobby of the Carlton Hotel. On…
Category: Writing
There’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans
The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. – George Simmel If you cut your change you free yourself. If you cut your…
The Publicity Stuff is Exhausting
The hybrid-memoir I wrote, Too White to Be Coloured Too Coloured to be Black: On the Search for Home and Meaning, was published at the end of April. The in-person launch was led by Haji Mohamed Dawjee and the online launch was led by Ferial Haffajee, two of the most exceptional people I know. The…
The Book has Been Published
The memoir I worked on last year has been published. It is being distributed to bookstores at the moment. It’s a somewhat daunting thing. I now have to engage in things like book launches, literary festivals (three in the next two months) as well as radio and TV interviews. These are the least favourite things…
Signing off on the book
In the next t4 hours I will be signing off on the on the book, a hybrid of memoir, commentary and analysis of South Africa’s contemporary history and persistent racial ordering. It should go on sale by 20 March.
Waiting Anxiously for Book Launch
Well, the final proofs have been done, the pictures (for the picture section) have been submitted, and the book is in the design stage. The expected date of the launch is late March. In the meantime, the publisher and marketing people have suggested that I go back onto social media. So, one month after de-activating…
When, or if borders open in 2022. Until then…
The first half of next year (2022) will be dedicated to the publication, marketing and publicity that will inevitably be part of the release of my memoir. The publishers have made the final decision on the title, and they will probably present it to me after the design and final proof process in early January….