As she looked down ...

Text messages | Eleven short trips to Chatsworth, by Darryl Accone

Readers of Pravasan Pillay’s Chatsworth who know the place and its people say: “That’s the way they talk” or “I recognise that”. Having read the 11 short stories in this Dye Hard Press collection, I feel tempted to claim that now I know it too. Of course, I don’t really; rather, what I do is recognise it.

But for this debut collection of short fiction to achieve that is considerable. Read more.

Austere beauty of Chatsworth by Niren Tolsi

His prose is spare yet precise in detail and minutiae. It captures not merely the lives of people living in the eponym of his collection, the former Indians-only township south of Durban, but the claustrophobia and gloom that accompanies class and caste disdain, racial oppression and the fatalism of a dead-end —set to a dead-beat — imposed on individuals and a community.

His stories are the mise en scène of melancholia.

“I have always felt that there is a deep vein of melancholia that runs through Chatsworth and which touches the lives of some of its residents,” says Pillay. Read more.

Not going very far

Food ( Music is the weapon of choice)

Graffiti in Venice, 2016. 

Opening up Soweto and Chatsworth with stories: a glowing review of Chatsworth in Business Day

Pravasan Pillay writes about another township, Chatsworth, in Durban. Seldom have I come across similar writing in which I can hardly wait for the next sentence. His collection could yet be remembered as the harbinger of a major authorship, up there with the very best in short SA fiction: Ivan Vladislavic, Nadine Gordimer and Hennie Aucamp. Read more.

A place where paradox lives and breathes - a review of Chatsworth, by Francine Simon

As a South African Indian, it is not easy for me to find writing that is descriptive of my cultural heritage. This is what I have experienced from the time I could read. The poets, the novelists, the short story writers and the playwrights scattered among the 2.5 percent of South Africans of sub-continental descent who identify as ‘Indian’ are scarcely represented in our national literature. I am continually seeking out depictions of the complex, rich culture I come from. Sometimes, I find a poem in an online magazine. Other times, it is a short story in a print journal. But discoveries like this do not happen as often as I would like...Read more

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.