Abdulrazak Gurnah • Kiprop Kimutai • Barbara Boswell •
Patrick Flanery • Glenn Diaz • Zanta Nkumane • Keletso Mopai •
Simon van Schalkwyk • Nick Mulgrew • Wamuwi Mbao •
Byron Loker • Sebastian Murdoch • Jarred Thompson •
CA Davids • Timothy Ogene • Uvile Ximba • Richard Conyngham •
Lola Akinmade Akerstrom • Louis Greenberg •
James Han Mattson • Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang •
Colleen van Niekerk • Chinenye Emezie •
Victor Dlamini • Tymon Smith
Welcome to the sixth issue of Volume 5 of The Johannesburg Review of Books—our fifth annual Fiction Issue!
This edition, we have reached the milestone of publishing our two-hundredth contributor. That’s five volumes, forty-eight issues, over nearly five years, with more than two hundred writers contributing. Rest assured, we have given ourselves a small, socially distanced, pat on the back.
To compensate for a somewhat lean year, thanks to the ongoing pandemic, we decided to go all out for this issue.
In this edition, then, read new short fiction from Patrick Flanery, Kiprop Kimutai, Barbara Boswell, Zanta Nkumane, Keletso Mopai, Byron Loker, Wamuwi Mbao, Jarred Thompson, and Simon van Schalkwyk.
We also excited to present excerpts from works in progress from Sebastian Murdoch and Glenn Diaz.
You can also sample hot-off-the press new novels by CA Davids, Timothy Ogene, Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang, Louis Greenberg, Lola Akinmade Akerstrom, Colleen van Niekerk, Chinenye Emezie and James Han Mattson, as well as excerpts from Abdulrazak Gurnah, Uvile Ximba, and Richard Conyngham.
We feature new poetry from Nick Mulgrew, while our Photo Editor Victor Dlamini shares a portrait of Mukoma Wa Ngugi.
Enjoy the issue, and let us know what you think on Facebook or Twitter.
Here’s the complete breakdown of Vol. 5, Issue 6, which you will also find on our issue archive page:
New short fiction
- ‘Archival Technics’, a new short story by Patrick Flanery
- ‘A Second Mowing’, a new short story by Simon van Schalkwyk
- ‘The Wood Carving’, a new short story by Kiprop Kimutai
- ‘Miss Johns’, a new short story by Barbara Boswell
- ‘Petite Mort’, a new short story by Zanta Nkumane
- ‘The Boy and Other Disasters’, a new short story by Keletso Mopai
- ‘From the Air’, a new short story by Wamuwi Mbao
- ‘Waving and Drowning’, a new short story by Jarred Thompson
- ‘You wake up on a spaceship’s operating table surrounded by strange creatures’, a new short story by Byron Loker
Works in progress
- An excerpt from ‘Vacation’, a work in progress by Sebastian Murdoch
- ‘The Capture’, an excerpt from a novel in progress by Glenn Diaz
Forthcoming works
Excerpts
- ‘Khalifa did not suspect with what nostalgia he would remember those days in later life’—Read an excerpt from Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives
- ‘Sometimes it felt as if I were speaking into a body of water’—Read an excerpt from CA Davids’s new novel How to Be a Revolutionary
- ‘The past was home. Home meant facing the past’—Read an excerpt from Colleen van Niekerk’s debut novel A Conspiracy of Mothers
- ‘The falling man appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of the air, right before Petra’s eyes’—Read an excerpt from Louis Greenberg’s Exposure
- ‘In anger, my words poisoned my bloodline. I can hear their echoes still’—Read an excerpt from Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang’s new novel Daughters of Nandi
- ‘He was the sort of writer who saw himself as the carrier of his continent’s honour’—Read an excerpt from Timothy Ogene’s novel Seesaw
- ‘She’d often wondered how that cloak of impenetrable privilege would feel around her shoulders’—Read an excerpt from Lola Akinmade Akerstrom’s In Every Mirror She’s Black
- ‘Filled with blood. She blinked. She closed the book, sighed’—Read an excerpt from James Han Mattson’s Reprieve
- ‘Did I know who my father was? Who he really was?’—Read an excerpt from Chinenye Emezie’s debut novel Glass House
- Read ‘The Widow of Marabastad’ an excerpt from the new graphic novel All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa
- ‘Dreams have always meant something to do with the future, possibility or danger. Dreams are to be taken seriously’—Read an excerpt from Uvile Ximba’s debut novel Dreaming in Colour
Poetry
Photography
Music
The JRB Daily
- Johann de Lange turns down South African Literary Award
- Winners of the inaugural Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards announced
- 2021 South African Literary Awards winners announced
- ‘A great year for African writing’—Damon Galgut wins the 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction, for his novel The Promise
