Published 21 April 2025 in News
Daniël Hugo's Tale of an Aardvark Featured in The Interpreters: South Africa’s New Nonfiction
Edited by Sean Christie and Hedley Twidle
Genre: Literary nonfiction, History, Current Affairs
Format: 500pp, paperback, 235 X 153mm
Print ISBN: 978-1-0370-4783-1
Publisher: Soutie Press
Distribution: Southern Africa, Protea Distribution
Publication date: May 2025
Featuring J. M. Coetzee • Kimon de Greef • William Dicey • Alexandra Dodd • Madeleine Fullard • Mark Gevisser • Anna Hartford • Anton Harber • Michiel Heyns • Daniël Hugo • Anton Kannemeyer • Bongani Kona • Rustum Kozain • Antjie Krog • Alastair Laird • Adrian Leftwich • Lidudumalingani • Bongani Madondo • Rian Malan • Zanele Mji • Mogorosi Motshumi • Nosisi Mpolweni • Julie Nxadi • Njabulo Ndebele • Lindokuhle Nkosi • Sean O’Toole • Kopano Ratele • Warren Raysdorf • Srila Roy • Lin Sampson • Kwanele Sosibo • Jonny Steinberg • Niren Tolsi • Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon • Roger Young • Percy Zvomuya
Across three decades of democracy, South Africa has seen an outpouring of longform, narrative journalism and creative nonfiction – genres in which some of the country’s finest writers have tried to make sense of a complex and changing society. This brand new, one-of-a-kind anthology collects some of the best literary nonfiction published since the end of apartheid, carefully selected and introduced by editors Sean Christie and Hedley Twidle.
From the underworld of zama zama goldminers to the tragicomic closure of a Cape Town Zoo, from stick fighting to punk rock, game lodges to fruit farms, cricket pitches to mermaids, The Interpreters: South Africa’s New Nonfiction assembles a range of true stories that are as compelling as any fiction.
Literary nonfiction in South Africa has often been found at the margins of our media – in zines, journals, now defunct magazines and personal blogs. It is a kind of writing that has, in general, not made much financial sense – more a medium for those obsessed with pursuing a single story over months or years. In The Interpreters, the editors have combed through 30 years of post-apartheid writing to produce a collection that combines preeminent names with lesser known but no less immersive and powerful works of creative journalism – disparate views and voices that, when read together, have created a new topography of South Africa’s recent past.
Daniël Hugo l Tale of an Aardvark (Excerpt) l 2004
ABOUT THE EDITORS
SEAN CHRISTIE is a journalist and sometime coordinator of emergency responses, who has contributed longform pieces to several South African newspapers, journals and essay collections. His nonfiction book, Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard – Life Among the Stowaways (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2016), was awarded the 2017 Recht Malan Prize. He is a previous winner of the CNN Multichoice African Journalist Award.
HEDLEY TWIDLE is a writer, teacher and researcher based at the University of Cape Town, where he is currently head of English Literary Studies. His collection of essays and nonfiction, Firepool: Experiences in an Abnormal World, was published by Kwela Books in 2017. Experiments with Truth, a study of life writing and the South African transition, appeared in the African Articulation series from James Currey in 2019. A new essay collection, Show Me the Place, was published by Jonathan Ball Publishers in 2024.
For media enquiries: Ingrid Sinclair [email protected]; +27(0)82 045 8242
To purchase a copy: [email protected]