2011-07-08
Schreiner: Karoo Writers Festival – Cradock, Eastern Cape, July 8-10, 2011
Grahamstown celebrates the arts in South Africa once a year – and now
Cradock, another key Eastern Cape town, has its own festival devoted
to the lives and output of Karoo writers. The country’s newest annual
festival, the Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival, takes place in Cradock
from July 8 to 10.
The first outing of the festival, the Spirit of Schreiner Festival,
which celebrated the life and work of the noted late Victorian and
Edwardian writer, social commentator and feminist Olive Schreiner,
took place in Cradock in July 2010. Now the event has been broadened
to all Karoo or Karoo-born writers and has been renamed the Schreiner
Karoo Writers Festival, in honour of Schreiner and other writers from
these vast plains.
A comprehensive programme has been organised for the 2011 event that
includes talks and discussions by such noted South Africans as
Cradock-born novelist Etienne van Heerden, who will talk about the
Camdeboo conection with his book, 30 Nights in Amsterdam; Olive
Schreiner Prize for prose writer Michael Cawood Green on his book For
The Sake of Silence, Paul Walters and Jeremy Fogg on the relationship
between Olive and her husband Samuel-Cronwright-Schreiner – who, when
they married in 1894, took his wife’s name - and novelist, poet and
singer Toast Coetzer presenting a Toast to the Karoo.
Nyameka Goniwe, widow of slain anti-apartheid hero Matthew Goniwe and
now the new mayor of the local municipality, will give a guided tour
of ‘her’ Lingelihle, while the Cradock Four will be remembered in a
talk by Judge Chris Nicholson on his book, Permanent Removal: Who
Killed the Cradock Four.
Journalist and playwright Tony Jackman will present a staged reading,
with professional actors including Lynita Crofford and John Caviggia,
of Bloody England, his play about Schreiner and Cecil John Rhodes.
Festival founder Darryl Earl David and his co-author Philippe Menache
will discuss their book 101 Country Churches of South Africa, focusing
on the Karoo churches, Chris and Julie Marais will present a Karoo
slide show, Heather Parker Lewis will talk about her book, Olive
Schreiner – the Other Side of the Moon, journalist Sabata Mokae will
talk about Schreiner’s Kimberley, and Chris Thurman will talk about
Guy Butler and Cradock.
There will also be the relaunch by Penguin Books of Eve Palmer’s
Plains of Camdeboo and Return to Camdeboo. Poetry will be represented
by Chris Mann, who will read his Karoo poems, and Almore Cupido will
introduce Clinton du Plessis’s poetry.
Also expect relaxing times by the fireside, a Karoo Kraal market day,
traditional Karoo kos at the Victoria Manor Hotel, and plenty of
old-fashioned Karoo hospitality.
The Festival Package Price is R899 per person, which includes two
nights dinner, bed and breakfast at Die Tuishuise - visit
www.tuishuise.co.za - lunches and many of the festival activities.
On the Friday there are two optional day trips; a guided walk to Olive
Schreiner’s remote grave site on Buffelskop AND a day trip to
Graaff-Reinet to visit Cranmere Farm (of The Plains of Camdeboo fame)
and into this lovely old Karoo town, lef by Professor Paul Walters of
Rhodes University English Department. The cost of this day tour is
R400 including lunch and transport.
To book for the Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival, contact Die
Tuishuise or Lisa Ker at 048 881 1650 or call 082 410 5596, or email
info@tuishuise.co.za
