Conversations with Writers

South African writer, Zukiswa Wanner is the author of The Madams (Oshun Books, 2006); Behind Every Successful Man (Kwela Books, 2008) and Men of the South (Kwela Books, 2010). She is also the founder of the Read SA campaign , a campaign encouraging South Africa to read. Her first novel, The Madams was shortlisted for the 2007 K Sello Duiker Award . In this interview, Zukiswa Wanner talks about her latest novel, Men of the South , which has been shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize : How would you describe Men of the South ? In an age where the world is battling with equal rights, Men of the South is a story of the struggles that modern day man is struggling to come to grasps with despite his apparent advantages over his female counterpart. While, in retrospect, and to most readers, it may appear that my more powerful characters are the first two protagonists, the story was actually a backward thing and came about as a response to the world-famous 2008...

Zimbabwean lawyer and author Petina Gappah has been writing from an early age. Some of her work has been published in anthologies that include Laughing Now (Weaver Press, 2008), Women Writing Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2008) and One World: A global anthology of short stories (New Internationalist, 2009) . Her debut collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly (Faber and Faber, April 2009) has been described as "a stunning portrait of a country in chaotic meltdown". In this email interview, Petina Gappah talks about her concerns as a writer. When did you start writing? Like most writers, I started writing as a child. I was not, however, as precocious as some that I have read about who started writing at age 5 or 3 or even before they were born. I started writing at about 10 or 11, and my first published anything was a story in the St. Dominic’s Secondary School magazine when I was 14. I started writing seriously in May 2006. I joined the Zoetrope Virtual Studio , a st...

Ivor W. Hartmann is a Zimbabwean writer, visual artist and literary activist. He is also editor-in-chief of StoryTime , an ezine that seeks to showcase new African writing. In this email interview, Hartmann talks about the ezine and about how it is being received by emerging African writers. What is StoryTime all about? To quote the StoryTime About page mission statement if I may, since I put the effort into re-writing it recently: The StoryTime African New Fiction FreEzine is all about new African fiction reading and writing. For our readers we provide a free weekly ezine showcasing the works of some of the hottest new African fiction writers. For our writers we endeavour to find them, and then encourage free online fiction publication at ST, as a multi-purpose means to improve writing ability and their exposure. For the ST readers, my aim is to publish at least one great fiction story every week from an African writer, usually early morning Sunday (+2GMT). I also do the occasional ...