Deep South Publishing

Harare Review of Books, June 2025 Hello, hi!

Harare Review of Books, June 2025 open.substack.com/pub/shonatig...

4/4
Daar is so baie van hierdie skynbaar banale stories waaroor ek mal is, maar ek het nie naastenby genoeg vaardigheid of talent om hierdie stories só op te skryf dat hulle tot hul reg kom nie.

3/
Dis so lekker as iemand ’n storie vertel van wat hulle by die werk gedoen het toe die kantoor vir ’n slag leeg was, of oor hoe hulle vanoggend hulle hare met conditioner in plaas van sjampoe gewas het.

2/
HK: Ek het gedink ek het een totdat ek nou pas hard probeer het om ’n oulike antwoord vir hierdie vraag uit te dink.

1/
BS: Het jy ’n gunsteling-storie? (Dit kan ’n boek wees, of ’n spesifieke kortverhaal, of enigiets anders wat storiematig is.)

[This excerpt below is from the only published interview with Henali Kuit that we could find and is from 2012. Nevertheless, it does throw light on her first book of stories that Deep South would go on to publish 10 years later.]

Henali Kuit 2024

Cover Art: Mary Wafer, 'Untitled IV 2015'

Cover Art: Mary Wafer, 'Untitled IV 2015'

"Nuwe Stories-onderhoud: Henali Kuit" an interview by Bibi Sippers for 'LitNet'

For the full LitNet interview with Henali Kuit, see her interviews tab/sections on the Deep South website:
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Cover Art: Megan Ross

"sunset" by Phillip Zhuwao, from 'Sunrise Poison' (Deep South, 2018)

For more, see:
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2/2
In this 2021 interview Dolla spoke to Tom Penfold about the art school, the ideas behind it and his hopes for the future.

1/
In 2020, Africa in Words published a 'Words on the Times' feature with the South African artist and poet, Dolla Sapeta. During his responses Dolla spoke of his vision of 'bringing to life an art school' in New Brighton in the Eastern Cape.

Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta 2021 © Karl Schoemaker

Cover Art: Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, 'Echoes 3'

"The New Brighton Art School" an interview with Dolla Sapeta by Tom Penfold for Africa in Words.

For the full interview with Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, see his interviews tab/section on the Deep South website.
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Cover Art: Paul Wessels

"Newphenomenal, giant flowers" by Khulile Nxumalo, from ten flapping elbows, mama (Deep South, 2004)

For more, see:
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6/6
It is a deeply moving, powerful poem that is redolent with complex questions and begs to be performed. [. . .]

5/
The poem is long and moves with quiet grace through a prologue, four large movements, & an epilogue. The interweaving of the poetic imagination & the historical permits a deep, sophisticated exploration of subalternity that is unencumbered by the opaque language that couches much literary theory.

4/
One of Press’s strengths is her ability to write longer pieces that are deeply nuanced, thoughtful and ever so finely balanced. "Krotoa’s story", for example, is at first glance a piece about the Khoisan woman assimilated into early Dutch settler life in the 17th century Cape and renamed “Eva”.

3/
It has been a singular pleasure to read Press’s work and I can do little more than mention a mere handful of poems that have resonated particularly strongly with me.

2/
It is testimony to the quality and variety of Press’s work that she has been included in the English literature portions of the NSC (Matric) curriculum and some local universities’ undergraduate literature courses.

1/
Karen Press’s latest collection, 'Heart’s Hunger', is to be welcomed. This magnificently rich and varied book brings together gleanings from her previous collections and settles, in one place, the substantial fruits of a long and celebrated career.

Karen Press 2018 © Daryl Glass

Cover Art: Lien Botha, 'Piero di Cosimo'

New Review by Mike Hagemann of 'Heart's Hunger' by Karen Press, for Stanzas No 34 (June/July), 2025

For the full review, see the 'Heart's Hunger' page on the Deep South website:
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Cover Art: Willem Boshoff, 'Tree'

"Ditch" by Rosamund Stanford, from The Hurricurrent (Deep South, 2011)

For more, see:
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10/10
I had submitted my first poetry manuscript to Ravan Press in Joburg. In fact it was from a letter from Ravan Press (Andries Oliphant was their editor) that I first learnt about Cosaw’s existence, and of the plan about 'Essential Things'.

9/
Amid all these conflicting emotions I arrived at the doors of Cosaw in Korsten, maybe a few weeks or just days before Cosaw closed down. So I was never really part or even that exposed to Cosaw’s culture and activities.

8/
From early on I could not shake off the disturbing feeling that I was in somebody’s crooked plans, that I was fingered, or even that people from somewhere with long, nightmarish dreams were looking for me. I was paranoid. Once, I took all my poems and buried them into a deep hole in our backyard.

7/
Under those harsh circumstances of my growing up, poetry became the only accessible language that could talk profoundly and in a way I could relate to about my need for complete meaning, my thirst for direction amid the noisy messages that had been drummed into my ears during my school years.

6/
He had focused us to see love away from pain and struggle and demonstratively spoke of the maternal instinct in his heroic poem "Behold mama, flowers".

5/
So when I wrote my first poems I was creating for myself some distance from this encroaching and awful world of manhood. I was looking for light where I sensed darkness lived, listening for the comforting sounds of words and unaffected spirits. In the 70s Serote had written 'No baby must weep'.

4/
Like a hunted animal I was cornered, gravely concerned about my future, unprepared for the emotional and psychological violence – the steep darkness that was to engulf my life later on – outside the familiar and troubled neighbourhood of New Brighton.

3/
The useless piece of paper from the Department of Education and Training, my certificate, stayed for years in one of the old sideboards at home to mock me for my gullible dreams of material or vocational success. In my case the apartheid dream of educating blacks for subservience succeeded.

2/
MN: The 80s and 90s were confusing times for many young people in the townships. I had just completed my matric in New Brighton during the most painful and dangerous of times. My school education had proven to me to have been a complete waste of time.

1/
DH: You were published in the Cosaw anthology 'Essential Things', in 1992. The sections allocated to each poet were quite big, actually small collections in themselves. You had thirteen poems under the title ‘To Have No Art’. What was your position as a poet back then?