In her much anticipated memoir, Sisonke Msimang writes about her exile childhood in Zambia and Kenya, young adulthood and college years in North America, and returning to South Africa in the euphoric 1990s. She reflects candidly on her discontent and...
Read More
Literary website Brittle Paper has announced the shortlists for the inaugural Brittle Paper Literary Awards. PEN SA members Petina Gappah and Sisonke Msimang were shortlisted in the Fiction and Essays / Think Pieces categories respectively. Gappah for her story “A...
Read More
Photograph: Ruth First in Jack Gold’s film on her imprisonment. Courtesy of Wits Journalism and the Ruth First Papers Projects. The 2016 Ruth First Lecture was held on Wednesday 17 August at the University of the Witwatersrand. This year’s keynote...
Read More
Koleka Putuma is the winner of the PEN SA Student Writing Prize for her piece “Water“. Putuma graduated with a BA in Theatre & Performance at the University of Cape Town. She has headlined at TEDx, SliPnet’s Inzync Poetry Sessions,...
Read More
By Margie Orford, written for Issue 3 2016 of the newsletter to the PEN SA membership PEN South Africa has been watching the unfolding scene at our universities with rising alarm at the polarisation of debate around transformation and race...
Read More
