South African literary trio visits the Göteborg Book Fair

There is a huge interest both nationally and internationally in this year’s African focal theme at the Göteborg Book Fair – not the least among traders at the London Book Fair, where South Africa should have been a theme this year. The Göteborg Book Fair and the Nordic Africa Institute had planned on presenting the Africa theme as well as three new literary guests in London – but unfortunately the seminar had to be cancelled due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption.

South Africa is a very exciting nation when it comes to literature. The country seems – regardless of genre, to have a fantastic source of interesting authors and also a unique capacity to reach out with its literature throughout the world. We would now like to present three South African authors who have made an important impact in the literary world: crime writer Deon Meyer, political journalist Mark Gewisser, and the young physician and promising author Kopano Matlwa.

Deon Meyer
Deon Meyer was born in Paarl, Cape province in 1958. After completing his education he worked as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Bloemfontein. He has also worked with advertisement and web. His literary carrier started with novels in Afrikaans for magazines and newspapers. His first detective story, “Dead Before Dying” was published in 1999. Up till now he has published six detective stories, which have been translated into twenty languages. His first detective story translated into Swedish was “Death at Dawn” in 2008. He is regarded as one of the best detective story tellers in South Africa.

Mark Gevisser
Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa’s leading journalists. His latest piece, “A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream” is published by Palgrave Macmillan in the USA and UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title “Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred”. The book won the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize and the NB Books 2008 Recht Malan Prize and has been lauded by the Times Literary Supplement as “probably the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid” and by the BBC’s Fergal Keane as “the indispensable and definitive account of post-apartheid South Africa.” Mark is currently writer-in-residence, University of Pretoria, where he teaches in the journalism programme.

Kopano Matlwa
Kopano Matlwa is a fresh face on the South African literary scene whose debut novel Coconut (2006) was met with wide acclaim earning her the 2007 European Union Literary Award as well as a publishing contract. At the age of twenty one, she became, by far, the youngest winner of the award. Matlwa has recently graduated as a medical doctor at the University of Cape Town. After being chosen as one of eight South African Goldman Sachs Global Leaders in 2005, she went on to represent the country at the investment company's institute in New York. Matlwa is a founding member and chairperson of Waiting Room Education by Medical Students, a non-profit organization that educates patients on common health issues in the waiting rooms of student run mobile clinics. She was also named one of 100 Young South Africans You Must Take to Lunch by the Mail & Guardian in 2007. Matlwa has been shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka Literary Price in 2010.

The Göteborg Book Fair will be held between 23-26th of September at the Swedish Exhibiton Centre in Göteborg. It attracts every year around 100 000 visitors.This year’s focal theme is Africa and African literature. Previously we have announced that Mpho Tutu, Petina Gappah, Nuruddin Farah, Elieshi Lema, Nawal El Saadawi and Alexander McCall Smith will participate at the fair.


For information, please contact:
Patrik Lindgren
Press officer for the Africa theme
Tel +46 709 55 72 25 
patrik.lindgren@nai.uu.se

Birgitta Jacobsson Ekblom
Public Relations Manager, Göteborg Book Fair
Tel +46 701 61 65 09 
bje@goteborg-bookfair.com