Botsotso

10/09/2026

🗣️BOTSOTSO GATHERINGS: NELSON RATAU🗣️

Join us on Wednesday 16 September at 6pm (SAST) for a special reading by Dr Nelson Ratau 🎤✨

Ratau will be reading from his latest collection of poems, Barefoot and Bright (Botsotso, 2026) 📖

RSVP: https://forms.gle/dW4m6GYBaQhH4zXf7

08/09/2026

Join us at Breezeblock Café on Saturday 19 September for the Johannesburg launch of Shalom Court!

The narrative unravels the identities and traumatic histories of both victim and killer, while tracing the web of stakeholders tied to the building — its residents, owners, police, and local government officials — each with their own legal and political stakes in its fate.

07/09/2026

As such, there is a thick plaiting of the personal, organisational and political, and in this vintage setting he reveals events as conforming to his mentor Schumacher’s dictum that “life is fired at you point-blank”. - Pam O'Brien for LitNet

"Point blank captures dramatic moments with textured description, as turning points are reached and South Africa moves into a new dispensation."

04/09/2026

📚JOBURG LAUNCH | THE CHRONICLES OF SHALOM COURT 📚

🎤The launch of The Chronicles of Shalom Court Vol 1, (sub-titled Mnyamandawo – ‘Place of Darkness’), Allan Kolski Horwitz’s novel about the failure of local government and private property owners to prevent the degradation of Yeoville will be launched at 2pm on Saturday, 19 September at The Breezeblock Café, 29 Chiswick St, Brixton. The novel, part murder mystery, part social exploration, opens with the discovery of the mutilated body of a middle-aged white woman in the basement of an abandoned block of flats in Natal St. The ensuing searches for the victim’s identity and that of the murderer suck in a large cast of local characters ranging from neighbours to civic activists, to police to Metro officials, to ‘squatters’ to petty criminals. Written in South African English, the ideological and philosophical digressions that pepper the book provide a rich mix masala of the neo-colony’s citizens and issues. Vol 1 will be followed next year by Vol 2 which consists of two books, In Pursuit of Light and The Rising.

19 SEPTEMBER 2026
14H00
BREEZEBLOCK CAFÉ, BRIXTON

25/08/2026

Q&A: PALESTINOFICATION 🎤

Poet Zeenit Saban-Jacobs speaks with David Mann about her latest collection of poetry, ‘Palestinofication’ and being shortlisted for the Ingrid Jonker prize for ‘Inside an Eyeball’.

Read the conversation on LitNet ✨ - https://www.litnet.co.za/a-better-future-is-worth-fighting-for-zeenit-saban-jacobs-speaks-with-david-mann-about-her-new-poetry-collection-palestinofication/

&A

24/08/2026

📚The Chronicles of Shalom Court 📚

Thank you for joining us at the Cape Town central library for the launch of Allan Kolski Horwitz’s new novel, ‘The Chronicles of Shalom Court’!

Next up, Jozi! 🙌✨

19/08/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the double launch of Mike Alfred’s ‘Point Blank’ and Mpumelelo Cilibe’s ‘Keep the Ship Moving!’ at Exclusive Books Cavendish last week! 🎉

Get both books at Exclusive Books and independent bookstores countrywide 📚

13/08/2026

Botsotso titles in the wild 🦜

Get Pitika Ntuli and Kelwyn Sole’s latest collections at the wonderful ! 📚

11/08/2026

"I hope Sean MacGinty’s Botsotso publication, Returning Signs, receives the attention it deserves. His work engages with or references various places in South Africa from an empathetic perspective. It represents an intersection between social geography, vexed as it often is in South Africa, and poetry."

A wonderful review by Frank Meintjies of Sean MacGinty's 'Returning Signs' (Botsotso, 2025) - https://frankbeat.blogspot.com/2026/08/returning-signs-shadows-in-poetic-view.html

Sean will be doing a live reading from Returning Signs tomorrow evening on Zoom. RSVP here: https://forms.gle/ecei6vWXH5hH4xrn6