PAGECAST

Live from the Franschhoek Literary Festival Pagecast Studio, Justice Malala joins Lester Kiewit for a wide-ranging conversation on South Africa's political trajectory and the questions shaping our democracy.

Justice Malala is an award-winning South African political analyst, journalist and bestselling author. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including We Have Now Begun Our Descent and The Plot to Save South Africa, which examine the country's political trajectory and democratic challenges.

Lester Kiewit hosts CapeTalk's Good Morning Cape Town.

Filmed & edited by Curt Ruiters at @Quickclickproductions_

What does it take to turn years of investigative reporting into a book? Live from the Franschhoek Literary Festival Pagecast Studio, Jeff Wicks opens up to Qaanitah Hunter about the craft, the process, and the personal toll of putting his new book on the page.

Jeff Wicks is a journalist with News24's investigations team. His reporting on the assassination of Babita Deokaran was shortlisted for the Global Shining Light Award, which recognises watchdog journalism in developing countries carried out under threat, duress or the direst conditions.

Qaanitah Hunter is an award-winning South African political journalist and founding editor of The Debrief Network. She is the author of several non-fiction and fiction works, including the co-authored Who Will Rule SA?, which has helped shape public discourse around South Africa's political future.

Live from the Franschhoek Literary Festival Pagecast Studio. Sven Axelrad's new book is The Dogs of Vivo.

Sven Axelrad is the author of four novels: Buried Treasure, God's Pocket, Nicotine Gospel, and now The Dogs of Vivo. He has published short stories in New Contrast and Fragment Collective and has been longlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize in Madrid. Sven is an accountant who just loves reading and writing.

Riley Henry-Herbert is a fiction writer and book reviewer based in Cape Town. He reviews books on Book Choice for Fine Music Radio and shares his thoughts on social media and on his Substack page, Underline.

Filmed & edited by Curt Ruiters at @Quickclickproductions_

Live from the Franschhoek Literary Festival Pagecast Studio. Tara Roos's new book Where To From Here? is a book for anyone wanting to understand the future of South African politics and the choices that will define it. Get your copy at Exclusive Books at the Franschhoek Town Hall!

Tara Roos is a political analyst and the parliamentary correspondent for Business Day.

Emma Swart is a Cape Town-based book reviewer, content creator, and co-host of The Reading Chatroom podcast. She is also the founder of The Shared Shelf, a literary community that brings readers together through book clubs, author conversations, and reflective reading spaces. Through her work, she shares a deep love for books and the conversations they make possible.

The latest episode of Pagecast is out now! For more festival insights, follow along with the News24 livestream of the Franschhoek Literary Festival.

Filmed & edited by Curt Ruiters at @Quickclickproductions_

Pagecast is coming to you live from the Franschhoek Literary Festival. Rémy Ngamije's new book is Only Stars Know, a collection of short stories that explore love, loss, identity, and human connection, centred on the life of an aspiring writer.

Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the founder of the Doek Arts Trust, an arts organisation which publishes Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia's first literary magazine, which he cofounded and serves as editor-in-chief.

In conversation with Wamuwi Mbao, columnist for Business Day's Wanted magazine, SALA-winning literary critic for the Johannesburg Review of Books, and lecturer in English Studies at Stellenbosch University. His book Years of Fire and Ash brings together fifty years' worth of South African protest poetry into one collection.

Filmed & edited by Curt Ruiters at Quickclick Productions.

In hierdie episode van Pagecast gesels die meningsvormer en leier van die burgerregte-organisasie Kaapse Forum Heindrich Wyngaard met die bekroonde ondersoekende joernalis en skrywer Julian Jansen oor sy nuwe boek Op die Spoor van die Stasiemoordenaar. Jansen, wat ook die skrywer is van boeke soos Moord op Stellenbosch en Die De Zalze-moorde, is bekend vir sy aangrypende, diep menslike joernalistiek en hierdie roerende gesprek het net weer bewys waarom hy bekend is daarvoor dat hy altyd die storie agter die storie gaan haal.

Van 1986 tot 1994 het die sogenaamde Stasiemoordenaar die mense van die Kaapse vlakte geterroriseer – 22 seuns en jong mans, die meeste tussen 9 en 14 jaar oud, is naby treinstasies ontvoer, seksueel aangerand en vermoor. Norman Simons is in 1995 skuldig bevind aan een van die moorde en is in 2023 op parool vrygelaat, maar steeds spook tergende vrae oor die saak. Jansen het op die spoor van die seuns en die destydse polisieondersoeke gegaan om lig te werp op hierdie donker raaisel.

"Ons moet die kind se identiteit, sy menswees onthou," sê Jansen. Agter elke naam in hierdie verhaal was 'n lewe, 'n gesin, 'n toekoms wat weggeruk is.

In today's episode of Pagecast, Joy Watson is in conversation with someone who knows her better than most - her sister, and fellow author, Mary Watson. It's an intimate kind of interview, the kind where the questions go somewhere deeper because the love in the room is already established. Settle in for this one.

More about the book:

What does it mean to lose yourself inside a relationship? Not dramatically. Not all at once. But slowly, quietly, in the small erosions that accumulate until one day you look in the mirror and struggle to recognise the person looking back.

That's the territory Joy Watson walks into with unflinching clarity in her extraordinary new book, Because I Love You.

This is not a book about breakups. It's about erasure. About the quiet harm that can live inside love, the kind that doesn't leave bruises on the skin but rewrites the architecture of your mind. It's about gaslighting and silence, withdrawal and control - and the slow, destabilising experience of being made to doubt your own reality by someone who claims to love you.

Watson traces the inner lives of three women - Zara, Mira and Thuli - whose stories unfold in fragments, the way real experience does. And woven through their stories is her own. It's for anyone who has ever wondered whether they were overreacting, too sensitive, too much, too little. Anyone who has asked: Am I the problem?

More about Joy and Mary:

Joy Watson is a feminist researcher, writer, and Book Editor-at-Large at the Daily Maverick. Because I Love You is published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Mary Watson is from South Africa and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town, where she taught for many years. She won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her adult publishing in South Africa, and in 2014 was named on the Africa39 list of writers under 40 with the potential to define trends in African literature. Her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie medal. Her adult debut, The Cleaner, was an instant Irish Times bestseller.

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In hierdie episode van Pagecast is Hanlie Retief in gesprek met Louis Jansen van Vuuren oor sy nuutste boek, Biltong en Dior: Avonture van 'n Afrikaanse Fransman.

Meer oor die boek:

As grootoog seun in die ou Oos-Transvaal het Louis Jansen van Vuuren nooit kon dink dat hy eendag ’n château in die Franse platteland sou besit nie.

Louis se kostelike vertellings oor sy lewe in Frankryk word verryk met boeiende brokkies oor die Franse geskiedenis en raad vir hoe om te oorleef in ’n samelewing met ’n haas onleerbare taal en eiesoortige gewoontes. Uiteindelik gee dié Afrikaanse Fransman se lewe in die vreemde hom ook ’n nuwe waardering vir dit wat hom uniek Suid-Afrikaans maak.

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In this episode of Pagecast, Shana Fife interviews Zubayr Charles about his unflinching debut novel, Haram.

About the book:

As a young man in a close-knit Muslim community in Woodstock, Muhammad used to feel trapped between who he was and who he was expected to be. But then he met Riyaaz, and his world shifted in unexpected ways.

Many years later, on the day of his wedding, Muhammad is pulled into memories of his adolescence – a time when faith and forbidden desires collided.

Haram is an unflinching tale alive with hidden and unspoken desires.

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📖 Buy Haram and support South African literature. It is available at all major bookstores

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This week on Pagecast, Khaya Dlanga interviews Pepe Marais about his book, One Word.

About the book: One Word reveals the transformative power of discovering and embedding your organisation’s true purpose – captured in a single word. In this thought-provoking and practical guide, based on the author's doctoral research and business experience of growing South Africa’s most successful advertising and communication group, Joe Public, you will uncover a clear framework for translating corporate purpose into lived organisational culture. #Pagecast #PepeMarais #JoePublic #SouthAfrica #BookPodcast #KhayaDlanga