Literary bunny chow: a review of Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth in Sunday Times

The queen begins to dream

A tweet from Saaleha Idrees Bamjee

#amreading Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay. Such artfully crafted characters, wonderfully nuanced tellings. Published by @GaryCummiskey.

Copies of Gary Cummiskey's Bog Docks still avaiable

Dye Hard Press has just FOUR copies left of Bog Docks, a chapbook of 25 poems by Gary Cummiskey, published in 2005.

Available at R60 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas the cost is R110, including postage. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Gary Cummiskey's When Apollinaire Died still available

Dye Hard Press has in stock just FOUR copies of When Apollinaire Died, a chapbook by Gary Cummiskey published by Firfield Press in Cape Town way back in 1996!

Available for R70 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas R120 including postage. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Arja Salafranca's Beyond Touch still available

Dye Hard Press still has copies in stock of Arja Salafranca's poetry collection Beyond Touch, which was published by Modjaji Books and Dye Hard Press in 2015.

Beyond Touch is Salafranca's third poetry collection and was co-winner of the SALA Poetry Award in 2016.

Copies are available at R145, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas orders, the price is R190, including postage. Contact dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Alan Finlay's pushing from the riverbank still available

Dye Hard Press has just FIVE copies left of pushing from the riverbank by Alan Finlay, published in 2010.

Consisting of 19 poems, this is a beautiful production by one of South Africa's finest poets.

Other titles by Finlay include Burning Aloes, No Free Sleeping and The Red Laughter of Guns in Green Summer Rain, with Philip Zhuwao. He was editor of Blek-Sem, donga and New Coin.

Available at R90 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas, R140 including postage. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Green Dragon #2 still available

Dye Hard Press has just TWO copies left of Green Dragon #2, published in 2003.

It contains poems by the late Daniel Abdul-hayy Moore, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Paul Wessels, Sumeera Dawood, Kobus Moolman, Gus Ferguson, Richard Fox, Aryan Kaganof, Alan Finlay, Philip Hammial and Joop Bersee. Prose by Allan  Kolski Horwitz, Alan Finlay and Arja Salafranca.

64 pages.

For South Africa the price is R60, including postage, and for overseas the price is R100, including postage.

Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Chats ‘home Swede home’ for author: an article on Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth

Inspired by his love for his hometown, a former Chatsworth resident now living in Sweden, released a book on the Durban township and the experiences encountered in the close-knit community of Montford.

Pravasan Pillay, 40, who lives in Stockholm, completed the book titled Chatsworth in 2014 but only had it published recently.

“It comprises 11 short stories. I wrote more but ended up cutting a lot of the stories because they did not quite match the tone I was aiming for,” said Pillay, a freelance editor... Read more.

Copies of Gary Cummiskey's Off-ramp still available

Dye Hard Press still has copies of Gary Cummiskey's Off-ramp in stock.

A finalist for the 2014 Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award, Off-ramp is the debut short fiction collection of Gary Cummiskey and consists of ten stories often characterised by a surreal eroticism. Set mainly in contemporary South Africa, the book opens with a young man’s hallucinatory encounter with a derelict in a Johannesburg street; there is a couple’s visit to a sinister Free State farm; an editor who reluctantly agrees to meet an aspiring woman writer at midnight; two young men who go out on a drinking spree as the country teeters on the edge of civil war; a restless teenager who stalks an unknown woman; and a middle-aged academic who engages in an obsessive, sadistic relationship with a prostitute.

The stories in this startling collection offer a vision of individuals who are slowly being devoured by paranoia and absurdity. Beyond the off-ramp lies a pervasive, heavy dread and an unnameable, perhaps unknowable fear. Cummiskey creates an off-kilter reality that is both disturbing and compelling.

Off-ramp is available at R150 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas the cost is R200, including postage.

 Email me at dyehardpress@iafrica,com for order details.

Copies of Kobus Moolman's Left Over still available

Dye Hard Press has unearthed some more copies of Kobus Moolman's poetry collection Left Over, published in 2013. Available for R150, including postage, in South Africa. For overseas the cost is R190. 

To order please send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com.

Copies of Khulile Nxumalo's fhedzi still avaulable

Dye Hard Press has just FOUR copies left of Khulile Nxumalo's second poetry collection, fhedzi, which was a finalist for the SALA Poetry Award in 2014.

Khulile Nxumalo was born in Diepkloof, Soweto, in 1971. He finished school at Waterford Kamhlaba, Swaziland, and went to the University of Cape Town, University of Natal and Wits University.

His first poetry collection, ten flapping elbows, mama, was published by Deep South in 2004. His work has appeared in several literary journals in South Africa, Canada, the UK and the US. Nxumalo has twice won the DALRO award for poetry. He has two children.

'Khulile Nxumalo is one of the few poets in South Africa using longer experimental forms. He has found a creative way of breaking up the English language and fusing it with other languages. He is also capable of intense lyrical expression.' – Robert Berold

'magma-burn. emotion-lava spilling out. of wounds.
and thoughts of them expressed in ghostly words
of the divining spirit. and coming thru the smog.
and dust,blood-rained on strange children's games.
and ever The Voice, lonesome, wearied, spiralling inward...
with this one, sikhulile!' – Lesego Rampolokeng

'The language expands to both participate in reality and recreate perceptions of reality with its metaphors and poetic syntax. This is a highly skilled technical work that evokes the surrealism and interlocking process of South African society.' - Kyle Allan

fhedzi is available for R140 a copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas the cost is 190 per copy. Email me at dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Green Dragon #6 still available

There are just TWO copies left in stock of Green Dragon #6, which was the final issue of a literary journal published by Dye Hard Press from 2002 to 2009. Contributors to this final issue were Alan Finlay, Arja Salafranca, Haidee Kruger, Janet van Eeden, Joop Bersee, Kelwyn Sole, Kobus Moolman, Tania van Schalkwyk, Megan Hall, Cecilia Ferriera, Anton Krueger, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Goodenough Mashego, David wa Maahlamela, Vonani Bila, Mphutlane wa Bofelo, Aryan Kaganof, Neo Molefe Shameeyaa, Colleen Higgs, Gus Ferguson, Brent Meersman, Kai Lossgott, Daniel Browde, Ingrid Andersen, Gary Cummiskey, Mick Raubenheimer and Mxolisi Nyezwa. There were also lyrics from Durban folk group The Litchis.

Copies are available from Dye Hard Press at R80 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas, R130 including postage. 

Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of The Edge of Things still available

Dye Hard Press has unearthed FIVE copies of The Edge of Things, the short fiction anthology edited by Arja Salafranca, which was published a few years back and received much critical acclaim. The Edge of Things contains 24 short stories by Jayne Bauling, Arja Salafranca, Liesl Jobson, Gillian Schutte, Karina Magdalena Szczurek, Jenna Mervis, Jennifer Lean, Fred de Vries, Margie Orford, Aryan Kaganof, Bernard Levinson, Hamilton Wende, Pravasan Pillay, Beatrice Lakwana, Hans Pienaar, Rosemund Handler, Tiah Beautement, Angelina N Sithebe, Jeanne Hromnik, David wa Maahlamela, Perd Booysen, Gail Dendy, Silke Heiss and Dan Wylie. 

The cost is R180 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas the cost is R230, including postage. 

Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Arja Salafranca's The fire in which we burn still available

Dye Hard Press has just THREE copies left of Arja Salafranca's poetry chapbook The fire in which we burn, published by Dye Hard Press in 2000.

24 poems, 44 pages.

The cost is R60, including postage, for South Africa, and R100 for overseas, including postage.
Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Copies of Green Dragon #4 still available

Dye Hard Press has just FOUR copies left of Green Dragon # 4, published in 2006.

It contains poems by Goodenough Mashego, Michelle McGrane, Colleen Higgs, Philip Hammial, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Amanda Van Rooyen, Liesl Jobson, Les Merton, Mkhosazana Xaba, Kobus Moolman, Aryan Kaganof, Joop Bersee, Haidee Kruger, Gus Ferguson, Bernat Kruger, Tania van Schalkwyk, Alan Finlay and Richard Fox, as well as prose by Allan Kolski Horwitz, Arja Salafranca, Haidee Kruger, Silke  Heiss and Gary Cummiskey.

90 pages.

The cost is R80, including postage, for South Africa, and R130, including postage, for overseas.

Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.