Podcast, Season 9 / 28 Sep 2023

S9E7 Hugo ka Canham & Grace A. Musila: Death, Life & Mpondo Theory

Grace A. Musila asks Hugo ka Canham about his book Riotous Deathscapes. They explore riotous methods, rural Mpondoland, precarity, storytelling, death and life as well as the natural and ancestral worlds.

Podcast, Season 9 / 21 Sep 2023

S9E6 Gabeba Baderoon, Roger Reeves & Bongani Kona: Intimacy & Interiority

Bongani Kona interviews Gabeba Baderoon and Roger Reeves about their books The History of Intimacy and Dark Days: Fugitive Essays.

Podcast, Season 9 / 14 Sep 2023

S9E5 John Marnell, Alejandra Oliva & Kudakwashe Vanyoro: Migration, Refuge and Solidarity

Kudakwashe Vanyoro interviews John Marnell and Alejandra Oliva about their books Seeking Sanctuary and Rivermouth. They deliberate about telling other people’s stories, the experiences of LGBTIQ migrants, immigration policies, translation, faith-based organisations and solidarity.

Podcast, Season 9 / 07 Sep 2023

S9 E4 Camille T. Dungy & Yewande Omotoso: Gardening & Creating a Space of Welcome

Yewande Omotoso asks Camille Dungy about her latest book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. They delve into nature writing, gardening, radical generosity, writing revisions, the ethics of fellowship grants, hope and resilience.

Podcast, Season 9 / 31 Aug 2023

S9E3 LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Sihle Ntuli & Vuyokazi Ngemntu: Tracing Lineages & Imagining Futures

Vuyokazi Ngemntu invites LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Sihle Ntuli to reflect on their poetic practice, language and dispossession, literacies, influences, rootedness, Black women’s histories and music.

Podcast, Season 9 / 24 Aug 2023

S9 E2 Ashwin Desai, Goolam Vahed & Betty Govinden: Durban’s Casbah – “A City Within a City”

Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed talk with Betty Govinden about their book Durban’s Casbah. They reflect on personal and collective pasts, bunny chows and bioscopes, critical nostalgia, indentured labour, migration, jazz and the Casbah today.

Podcast, Season 9 / 17 Aug 2023

S9E1: Sarah Lubala, Mahtem Shiferraw & Phillippa Yaa de Villiers – Writing Across Time

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers interviews Sarah Lubala and Mahtem Shiferraw about their poetry collections, A History of Disappearance and Nomenclatures of Invisibility.

Podcast, Season 8 / 27 Jul 2023

S8E7 Jade Song & Mia Arderne: Mermaids, Body Horror & Becoming

Mia Arderne asks Jade Song about their debut novel Chlorine. They discuss beliefs about mermaids, girlhood, magical realism, mental illness, writing about violence and sexual assault, reclaiming one’s body, queer narratives and advice for writers.

Podcast, Season 8 / 20 Jul 2023

S8 E6 Jarred Thompson, Tyriek White & Khanya Mtshali: Debut Novels, Social Critique & Mortality

Khanya Mtshali asks Jarred Thompson and Tyriek White about their novels The Institute for Creative Dying and We Are a Haunting

Podcast, Season 8 / 13 Jul 2023

S8E5 KB Brookins & Maneo Mohale: Dreaming of Freedom & Centring Trans Joy

KB Brookins talks with Maneo Mohale about their poetry collection Freedom House. They contemplate poetry, social justice, community, police brutality, Blackness and transness as well as hope.

Podcast, Season 8 / 06 Jul 2023

S8E4 Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Idra Novey & Sean O’Toole: The Exhilaration of Visual Art

Sean O’Toole asks Bronwyn Law-Viljoen and Idra Novey about their novels Notes on Falling and Take What You Need. They discuss the emotional repertoires of their characters, the political context of their work, art-making as well as writing about mothers and daughters.

Podcast, Season 8 / 22 Jun 2023

S8E3 Manuel Muñoz and Lester Walbrugh: “The Real Mystery of Everyday Stories”

Lester Walbrugh asks Manuel Muñoz about his latest collection of short stories: The Consequences. Manuel reflects on his Mexican-American identity, working on farms as a young boy and embracing his family’s stories.

Podcast, Season 8 / 15 Jun 2023

S8E2 Cristina Rivera Garza and Stacy Hardy: Femicide, Justice and Love

Cristina Rivera Garza is in conversation with Stacy Hardy about her book Liliana’s Invincible Summer. Cristina reflects on the process of writing this celebration of the life of her sister Liliana, who was murdered in 1990 by an ex-boyfriend.

Podcast, Season 8 / 08 Jun 2023

S8E1 Charif Shanahan and Bongani Kona in Conversation: Racism, Positionality & A Life in Poetry

Bongani Kona asks poet Charif Shanahan about his latest collection Trace Evidence: poems (Tin House, 2023).

Podcast, Season 7 / 26 Apr 2023

S7E8 Noni Jabavu: Hiding in Plain Sight

Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi asks Athambile Masola and Makhosazana Xaba about their book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home.

Podcast, Season 7 / 20 Apr 2023

S7E7: Darryl Pinckney Remembers Elizabeth Hardwick and 1970s New York

Angelo Fick asks Darryl Pinckney about his book Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan.

Podcast, Season 7 / 13 Apr 2023

S7E6 Barbara Masekela and Sisonke Msimang in Conversation: “The Great Secret of History”

Sisonke Msimang interviews Barbara Masekela about her memoir Poli Poli.

Podcast, Season 7 / 06 Apr 2023

S7E5 Robin Coste Lewis and Bongani Kona in Conversation: “Exploding the Myth of Time”

Bongani Kona hosts Robin Coste Lewis for a discussion of her award-winning poetry collections To the Realisation of Perfect Helplessness and Voyage of the Sable Venus.

Podcast, Season 7 / 30 Mar 2023

S7E4: Celebrating Keorapetse Kgositsile: “Without Love There Is No Revolution That Matters”

Sandile Ngidi and Uhuru Phalafala honour the life and legacy of Keorapetse “Bra Willie” Kgositsile.

Podcast, Season 7 / 24 Mar 2023

S7E3: Steve Biko, Black Consciousness and the SASO/BPC Trial

Ekow Duker asks Millard Arnold about his book The Testimony of Steve Biko.

Podcast, Season 7 / 09 Mar 2023

S7E2: Remembering Regina Gelana Twala

Nosipho Mngomezulu asks Joel Cabrita about her groundbreaking new book Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala.

Podcast, Season 7 / 28 Feb 2023

S7E1: Reflections on Black History Month

Mandisa Haarhoff interviews Jaclyn Cole in the first episode of our Black History season.

Podcast, SA News, Season 6 / 15 Dec 2022

S6E4: Historical Fiction and Complicated Families

Thando Njovane chairs a discussion with Rešoketšwe Manenzhe and LaToya Watkins about their debut novels Scatterlings and Perish, respectively.

Podcast, Season 6 / 08 Dec 2022

S6E3 Crime Fiction: Searching for a Resolution

Angela Makholwa interviews Margie Orford and Marcie Rendon about their latest novels The Eye of the Beholder and Sinister Graves, respectively.

Podcast, Season 6 / 01 Dec 2022

S6E2: Climate Crisis & Compassion in the Digital Age

Akil Kumarasamy and Alistair Mackay talk to Abdul-Malik Sibabalwe Oscar Masinyana about their novels Meet Us by the Roaring Sea and It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, respectively.

Podcast, Season 6 / 24 Nov 2022

S6E1 Storytelling: A Way to Make Sense of the World

Baeletsi Tsatsi interviews Sheila Arnold and Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa about the art of storytelling.

Podcast, Season 5 / 06 Oct 2022

S5E8: Queer Utopia and Activism

Efemia Chela asks Mark Gevisser and Sarah Schulman about their books The Pink Line and Let the Record Show, respectively.

Podcast, Season 5 / 29 Sep 2022

S5E7: Visual Memory, Artistic Practice & Haunted Spaces

Dylan Valley interviews Kitso Lynn Lelliott and Bayeté Ross Smith about their artistic practice and projects.

Podcast, Season 5 / 22 Sep 2022

S5E6: A Language of the Otherwise & the Meaning of Home

PEN SA board member Bongani Kona interviews Claire Schwartz and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon.

Podcast, Season 5 / 15 Sep 2022

S5E5: The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs

Featured image credits: Albie Sachs by Steve Gordon In this special episode, PEN SA president Nadia Davids invites Justice Albie Sachs to reflect on his first book, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (1966) – a testament to his resistance…

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Podcast, Season 5 / 25 Aug 2022

S5E4: Writing Water

Nikiwe Solomon and Lucas Bessire share their experiences of researching and writing about rivers in Cape Town and aquifers in Kansas. They contemplate the language of denialism, depletion and toxicity, anthropology as activism, redefining value, and responding to the planetary crisis.

Season 5 / 18 Aug 2022

S5E3 Remembrance and Justice

Julie Otsuka talks to Bongani Kona about her three novels: When the Emperor was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers. Their conversation engages with painting, memory, community, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War 2, book bans, writing in the first person plural and more.