All about books

September is a busy month. First there is the SA Booksellers’ AGM, which consists of two days filled with in-depth discussions around an industry vital to the success of our country and yet beset from every side. As always I leave amazed at the tenacity and the ingenuity of those who keep South Africa reading.

Bookmark is focused on the issues faced by the booksellers in their specific sectors of engagement, and these issues are reflected in the sector reports. Copyright is a huge issue for academic booksellers, while centralised procurement cuts the educational booksellers − who are masters in the art of hand-selling the right books to individual schools at the best price they can afford to offer − out of the equation. At the same time, budget cuts are a death knell to library suppliers; and an economy in recession is making life very hard for everyone.

Despite all these drawbacks, a positive note was sounded more than once, as it was when guest speaker Frans Cronje of the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) and author of a Time Traveller’s Guide to South Africa in 2030, told delegates that South Africans are incredibly resilient, and essentially just want to get along and get on with it.

Publishers and booksellers gather annually at the Sefika Awards to celebrate South African authors, publishers and booksellers through the Nielsen Booksellers Choice Award. The occasion is witness to relationships that have held strong for years, and many old friends were present. Also pleasing were the many new faces to be seen at the event.

With reports done and celebrations over, it was back to business as usual, back to books. At the very least there is always that ‘back to books’ for most of the attendees. And following quickly after that Open Book Festival, National Book Week (NBW) and the South African Book Fair (SABF)!

To be honest, I was not quite sure how to cope with the first one. Open Book has been my favourite literary festival since it launched seven years ago. Only a newborn has managed to keep me away in the past. This year I was torn.

Having taken over the SABF from the Publishers’ Association of South Africa, the South African Book Development Council (SABDC), which has run NBW in the first full week of September for several years, made the logical decision to hold the Fair as a celebration of all its efforts at the end of NBW. This placed it over the second weekend of September, which makes sense on all levels but one: Open Book ran over the very same weekend.

Many publishers and authors attended both events, rushing from one to the other. Though they no doubt found it quite taxing, I found it amazing that South Africa could stage two literary fairs − both offering wonderful programmes and staging unique local, African and international voices − at the same time!

For a country whose future depends on its people and on their commitment to education, which is rooted in reading, that is quite something, especially when we consider our more recent history. Henrietta Rose Innes wrote a brilliant piece for the Times Literary Supplement in July this year, in which she took the reader through her experience as a writer in the post-apartheid era; and reflected on how it had taken us 20 years to process the radical shifts in our country’s consciousness.

Originally, she says, “I felt isolated; and South African writing itself felt isolated from the rest of the continent and the world. Even within the country, the writing scenes in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town were like different planets. I knew of only one local literary festival – “Time of the Writer” – which had begun in 1998.”

How different the scene is today. “There is now an active, sometimes contentious festival scene – Open Book, Franschhoek and others – that brings writers and readers together. It feels, too, that the South African writing scene is now much more integrated with the rest of the continent: there is a flow of writers from other parts of Africa into our festivals and conferences, and vice versa, and a mingling on the broader international circuit.”

The South African Book Fair has positioned itself squarely in the middle of this African narrative in Johannesburg, whereas Open Book brings incredible international authors to the Cape. With NBW delivering books to smaller, more rural localities nationwide, the first week of September truly was National Book Week this year.