We are pleased to share the news from Modjaji Books that a new edition (the fifth) of the African Small Publishers’ Catalogue is in production and will be available in July 2021. There’s still time and space to list in… Read More ›
Modjaji Books
Celebrating ‘The Decade Project’ with Brittle Paper: 10 AiW African Literary Cultural Faves
Literary blog and archiving platform Brittle Paper turns 10 this year! Happy birthday BP! This month we take up their invitation to join their celebrations in their #DecadeProject with a post marking the last ten years as a significant decade… Read More ›
“A Thousand Tentative Tendrils”: Review of The Only Magic We Know: Selected Modjaji Poems 2004 to 2019
AiW Guest: Susanna Sacks. AiW note: This review is the fourth, and last, in a series of posts on the release of two anniversary collections from feminist indy press Modjaji Books – the short story anthology published last year, Fool’s Gold: Selected… Read More ›
“But Words Grow Up and Reverberate” (Arja Salafranca): Review of “Fool’s Gold: Selected Short Stories” from Modjaji Books
AiW Guest: Susanna Sacks. AiW note: This review is the third in a series of posts on the release of two new anniversary collections from feminist press Modjaji Books – the short story anthology published last year, Fool’s Gold, and… Read More ›
Q&A: “honoring the writers” – in conversation with Colleen Higgs, Modjaji Press
AiW Guest: Susanna Sacks. Two weeks ago, I caught up with Colleen Higgs, writer and publisher of the independent feminist press Modjaji Books, to discuss Modjaji’s history and her own publishing activism. Higgs founded Modjaji in 2007 to build space… Read More ›
Q&A: Words on the Times – Colleen Higgs, writer & publisher Modjaji Books.
Colleen Higgs founded Modjaji Books in 2007 as a platform for work by women writers from southern Africa. Modjaji, the Rain Queen of Limpopo, is a “powerful female force for good, new life and regeneration”. The press continues her work… Read More ›
Q&A – Barbara Adair’s Words on the Times for her novel, ‘WILL, The Passenger Delaying Flight…’ (Modjaji Books)
In a dystopian world that has served up an imperfect future, Adair breathes life into the limbo and emotional baggage of her characters as they travel across the world. Karabo K. Kgoleng – broadcaster, public speaker, writer Recently we caught up… Read More ›
Festive Favourites: Season’s Reading from Africa in Words
It is that time of year again when the holiday spirit begins to grow. For some, it is a time to spend with family and get away from it all. For others, the holidays might just be a good chance… Read More ›
“An act of inspiration”: Review of La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono
AiW Guest: Karina M. Szczurek Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda was first published two years ago in its original Spanish by Feminist Press and has now become the first novel by an Equatorial Guinean woman writer to be translated into… Read More ›
Review: Revisiting Makhosazana Xaba’s These Hands – Poems
AiW Guest: Stephanie Selvick I asked Makhosazana Xaba what it was like hearing that her debut collection of poetry, These Hands: Poems (2005), was accepted by Modjaji Books for a reprint due to demand by readers and teachers. “There is… Read More ›
Review: Kholofelo Maenetsha’s ‘To the Black Women We All Knew’
AiW Guest: Helen Cousins. What a bittersweet eulogy this is to the suffering of Black women at the hands (and often the fists) of Black men; not always surviving, as indicated by the past tense of the title. The novel… Read More ›
Review: ‘Do Not Go Gentle’
AiW Guest: Danielle Faye Tran. “It is my wish […] that people should know I died of AIDS” (27) -from a letter written by character Zola to be read aloud at her vigil The spread of HIV creates a tense… Read More ›
List in the new ‘Small Publishers’ Catalogue: Africa’ – for March 2016
The 2016 Small Publishers’ Catalogue: Africa is calling for people who want to list or advertise in its latest edition. Reviewing the last one in 2013, we agreed with Publishing Perspectives that it was ‘a beauty’ – and the very definition of something… Read More ›
Review: poetry from Modjaji Books – ‘Now the World Takes These Breaths’ by Joan Metelerkamp and ‘The Attribute of Poetry’ by Elisa Galgut
AiW Guest: Tom Penfold. Now the World Takes These Breaths by Joan Metelerkamp Joan Metelerkamp is one of the most consistent and articulate poets of South Africa’s post-apartheid literary landscape. Alongside other contributors to the New Coin journal that she… Read More ›
Review: Reneilwe Malatji’s ‘Love Interrupted’ (Modjaji, 2012)
Reading Reneilwe Malatji’s Love Interrupted in the build up to women’s month in South Africa this August places the text’s significance in particular focus. Marie Claire’s #MCInHer Shoes campaign against gender based violence put male celebrities in high heels in… Read More ›
New African fiction, poetry and non-fiction for the coming months
As the seasons change and Spring begins to arrive here in the UK, it seems a good time look forward to some forthcoming African fiction, non-fiction and poetry releases due over the next few months. What are you looking forward… Read More ›
Terra incognita. Uncharted depths. Africa unknowable.
Short Story Day Africa‘s second collection of short stories Terra Incognita is an anthology of new speculative fiction from Africa, featuring the top nineteen stories from SSDA’s 2014 competition, edited this year by Nerine Dorman. This carefully curated collection is harvested from entries… Read More ›
Q&A: Colleen Higgs – publisher Modjaji Books
Colleen Higgs is the publisher and passionate, dynamic force behind Modjaji Books, a small independent press based in Cape Town, South Africa. Inspired by Modjadji, the Rain Queen of Limpopo, a powerful female force for good, growth, new life, and… Read More ›
The Small Publishers’ Catalogue 2013
This year sees the new edition of Modjaji Books’ Small Publishers’ Catalogue, which updates the first edition of 2010. Publishing Perspectives have called this one ‘a beauty’, and indeed it is, in concept and design. The print copy is, again, a lovely size, great… Read More ›
