It’s that time of year again

Last year, I remember crawling along the N1 on my way to Franschhoek, wondering whether it would be worth such an arduous journey. (I really don’t think we’ve had such a heavy downpour since.) But it was. It was wonderful to listen to Sindiwe Magona and Petina Gappah on a panel, and another stand-out speaker was Vikas Swarup. I’m always very impressed when a writer is also able to speak – I’m not sure why I expect those skills to be mutually exclusive – and he was funny and engaging.

This year’s line-up doesn’t disappoint. What is disappointing is that today is the first day of the festival... and I’m stuck here at the office. At least I’m spared making tough decisions: it’s sometimes painful to choose when there are several interesting discussions you’d want to attend lined up in the same time slot.

I was looking forward to hearing Jonathan Jansen but apparently he’s been awarded an Honorary Doctorate at Cleveland State University and the ceremony coincides with the FLF.

I’ll be interested to hear what Michiel Heyns, Rachelle Greeff and Karabo Kgoleng have to say about the art of book reviewing in a discussion chaired by Jenny Crwys-Williams. At Fairlady, we like to keep them short, as we believe they’re a lot sweeter that way.

The panel discussion including Mandla Langa, Deborah Posel and Graeme Bloch, chaired by Victor Dlamini, titled ‘We Don’t Need No Education’ is another I’m looking forward to – it’s a subject very close to my heart. I’m sure they’ll provide great insights.

And the cleverly titled ‘Crime, the Beloved Country’ with Deon Meyer, Angela Makholwa, Wessel Ebersohn and Margie Orford is about whether different countries have different crime writers.
I’ll give you a weather report on Monday! (And maybe a few comments.)