PAGECAST

Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episode, Wamuwi Mbao interviews Siphokazi Jonas about her poetry collection, Weeping Becomes a River.

Siphokazi Jonas is a weaver of seemingly discordant worlds; growing up in an Afrikaans dorpie, attending an English boarding school, and going on annual holidays to a village emaXhoseni during the transition years of South Africa’s democracy made this a necessity.

In Weeping Becomes a River she confronts the linguistic and cultural alienation experienced as a black learner in former Model C schools in the 1990s and early 2000s, then fashions the fragments to reclaim and rewrite her place within a lineage of storytellers.

Migrating between forms, between poetry and intsomi, she navigates the waters of tradition, religion, intergenerational experiences of rural and urban spaces, and the ways in which family dynamics affect the body. She is not only a referee of the raging tensions within her, but she also pieces together a language for pathways of leaving and returning.

Her poems grapple with the past, the present, and possible futures without forgetting that “the body is marked territory from birth, and the scent of it never leaves”.

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Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episode, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese interviews Nick Mulgrew about his latest collection, The Book of Unrest, as well as the launch of his new press, Batis Books, which is based in Edinburgh.

More about The Book of Unrest:

An ocean of

floodwater. Shipwrecked toddlers. Skeletons that rise from pristine

beaches. In his second book of poems, Nick Mulgrew confronts the natural

and human disasters of the eastern South African coast – and, in the

process, himself.

An unflinching examination of ancestry and place, of ruined childhoods and a troubled present, The Book of Unrest

conjures a world of alternating beauty and horror; a series of tainted

land-, city and seascapes, increasingly hostile to those living in them.

Drawing upon the wisdom of other Durban writers, Mulgrew interrogates

the purposes of poetry and politics in such a fraught time and place.

Can our traumas be learned from, or do they only shackle us to the past?

In turns elegiac and nihilistic, witty and desperate, sprawling

and precise, these poems sift through personal and collective histories

of mistrust and violence, to find what, if anything, can bring us rest.

Thank you to our furniture sponsor, Zorora:

https://zororasofas.co.za/

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Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episode, Bongani Kona interviews Frankie Murrey about her latest work, A Collection of Gaps.

There’s this moon in the sky. And I want to say – not now,

moon, I’ve got work to do. But you know the moon. She never

listens. So I sit and watch her for a while. Admire those curves.

Whisper secrets and cigarette smoke love.

— from ‘Letter to the Night’

Thank you to our furniture sponsor, Zorora:

https://zororasofas.co.za/

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Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this episode, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese interviews Sarah Uheida about her debut poetry collection, Not This Tender.

Sarah Uheida’s Not This Tender is a profound exploration of memory, navigating the war-torn landscapes of North Africa, which she was forced to flee as a child. The collection offers a mythical yet deeply personal examination of longing and belonging, estrangement, loss, and the influence of family and language, conveyed through immersive portraits and the perspective of a fractured landscape.

Thank you to our furniture sponsor, Zorora:

https://zororasofas.co.za/

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Pagecast was at the 2025 Open Book Festival, where we spoke with authors about their writing journeys and the stories they share with readers. In this first episode, Wamuwi Mbao interviews Foluso Agbaje about her moving novel, The Parlour Wife.

Set in Lagos in 1939 during the start of World War Two, the story follows Kehinde, who must leave her dreams of writing to become the third wife of Mr Ogunjobi. Kehinde finds purpose selling snacks and later joining the Lagos Market Women’s Association, fighting the British for women’s rights. But if her husband discovers her defiance, she risks being abandoned. Can Kehinde find the courage to fight for herself and other women, or will she remain trapped as a parlour wife?

Thank you to our furniture sponsor, Zorora:

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In this episode of Pagecast, Shaun de Waal interviews Justice Edwin Cameron about his book, Behind Prison Walls.

More about the book:

Since the Zuma presidency weakened crime intelligence, violent crime surged, with murder rates rising over 75%. South Africa faces severe femicide, and most murderers evade justice. Prisons fail by perpetuating crime; harsher sentences do not help. Edwin Cameron, after visiting prisons, advocates for reform. Along with colleagues, he suggests abolishing minimum sentences, cash bail, and decriminalizing drug use to improve safety and justice.

#EdwinCameron #BehindPrisonWalls #CrimeReform #SouthAfricaCrime #BookPodcast #Pagecast #Authorinterview #Prison

This week on Pagecast, Qaanitah Hunter is in conversation with Jeff Wicks to talk about his new book, The Shadow State.

More about the book:

On 23 August 2021, a quiet, hardworking single mom was shot down as she drove home. Her name was Babita Deokaran, chief accountant at the Gauteng Department of Health. The izinkabi paid to kill her were caught, but the question remained: who ordered her murder, and why? Crime reporter Jeff Wicks set out to find the answer – a pursuit that would profoundly change, even endanger, his life. This is an explosive investigation into state capture and a moving tribute to the cost of integrity.

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In this episode of Pagecast, Keanan Hemmonsbey interviews Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell about her prize-winning memoir, These Heavy Black Bones.

More about the book:

This is not a story about making history.

Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell was once a double British Champion and the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. As her body and mind are sharpened through gruelling training, press scrutiny and the harshness of adolescence, Rebecca charts her career’s ascent and her singular love of the water, before explaining why she walked away from it all.

A compulsive and unforgettable study of intensity, These Heavy Black Bones meditates on Blackness, identity and the ecstasy of peak physical performance, and lays bare the pressures within the swimming world.

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In this episode of Pagecast, Janine Jellars interviews Nadia Cassim about her new book, Not Another Samoosa Run! This is a heartfelt conversation about the vibrant stories, rich cultural nuances, and powerful themes that make this book a unique and engaging local read.

More about the book:

In Tasneem’s close-knit Muslim Indian community, the stigma of divorce is a heavy burden to carry, and her mother insists on finding her a new husband – even if it means orchestrating a traditional ‘samoosa run’. When she meets Aadil an unexpected connection sparks and they strike a deal: a pretend engagement to keep their families off their backs. But a simple ruse soon grows complicated because one of them is hiding a life-changing secret . . .

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This week we have the incredible Sue Nyathi chatting with Busisekile Khumalo to discuss her novel, "Rubies and Rain."

More about the book:

Ruby has to deal with the news of her father’s death and her sex scandal simultaneously trending on social media. Vimbai has been captured and Nosihle returns to Harare where her path crosses with Joshua, Shadow’s second in command.

Ruby is arrested and locked in the same cell as Vimbai. Will the two women be able to put aside their differences to survive this ordeal?

Rubies and Rain is a page-turner filled with surprise twists and turns.

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