Refresh, reboot and reset — free talks featuring SA’s best writers set for Cape Town

24 Mar 2025

Join Daily Maverick and other renowned South African journalists and writers for free discussions at the Suidoosterfees/Festival at Artscape in Cape Town from 30 April to 4 May.

Every year, ground-shifting debates and discussions with some of this country’s leading thinkers, journalists, historians and writers take place in the centre of Cape Town, and it’s all free/gratis/mahala.

Thanks to the Jakes Gerwel Foundation, the ATKV and Netwerk24, in partnership with various South African publishing houses and the annual Suidoosterfees/Festival, these discussions have grown in popularity and significance since first being introduced in 2018.

The Suidoosterfees/Festival has taken place for over 21 years in the city and is hosted at the Artscape complex.

Daily Maverick’s resident authors of multiple works, Pieter-Louis Myburgh and Caryn Dolley, will join legal journalist and author Karyn Maughan, Jana van der Merwe and Mia Spies on 1 May in the ATKV Book Oasis for a panel discussion titled “Press Freedom – We Will Not Be Silenced”.

The discussion is multilingual and questions from the audience in any language are encouraged.

Those seeking to attend must bear in mind that while the events are free, you must still book on Webtickets.

Fiction and fact

Exclusive Books will be handling book sales at the venue and authors will be available to sign copies after the panel discussions. Free coffee will also be served.

Former top cop turned prolific writer Jeremy Vearey joins Candice Jantjies to discuss Vearey’s new war novel, Rooisand/Crimson Sands, which is set in Namaqualand, German South West Africa and the Cape Colony and follows the life of main character Dirk Aruseb, who was 17 when he was hauled off from the orphanage in Pela to join the Bondelswarts. This discussion is at 12.30pm on 1 May.

Cape historian Patric Tariq Mellet joins veteran Clarence Ford at 2pm on 1 May for a discussion about Mellet’s book, The Truth About Cape Slavery, Mellet’s exploration of how slavery was the foundation of an agricultural economy.

Food and history

Beloved Western Cape residents Michael Weeder, Ingrid Jones, Frazer Barry, Ilza Roggeband and Asanda Ngoashing, in partnership with The Obsession Store, will partake in a discussion titled Ons komvandaan se kosstories (Recipes from our place of home).

They will reminisce about the food they grew up with on 2 May, at 12.30pm.

Franklin Sonn, struggle icon, diplomat, former vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, education and business leader, will be in conversation with Nico Koopman about his remarkable life.

This included being a confidant of Nelson Mandela and the first black ambassador to the US to represent the country all contained in his book, Karooseun van Vosburg, (Karoo son of Vosburg). This takes place at 11am on 2 May.

Roger Southall, Anthony Butler and Imraan Coovadia will discuss Southall’s book, Smuts and Mandela: The Men Who Made South Africa, looking at how these two leaders obtained worldwide recognition.

While Smuts was lauded for his reshaping of the international political landscape after two world wars, Mandela will be remembered as a reconciliatory statesman who led his country to democracy.

Mandela is still an icon while Smuts’s halo has been tarnished somewhat. Professor Anthony Butler’s forthcoming book will be about post-apartheid presidents. This event takes place on 2 May at 2pm.

Where new work is sparked

Paulet House, the Gerwel Foundation’s writer’s retreat in KwaNojoli (formerly Somerset East) has surfaced many new writing talents. Join Barbara Boswell and Juliette Mnqeta, Mia Arderne, Sihle Qwabe and Angela Briggs, just a few of the 160 writers who have passed through the retreat’s portals.

Paulet House – Where Stories are Born takes place on 2 May at 3.30pm.

Nelson Mandela’s longtime aide Zelda la Grange has penned a passionate and moving book, What Nelson Mandela Taught Me. She will be in conversation with Mia Spies on 3 May at 9.30am.

A Love Letter to Many features Vishwas Satgar, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand, and Dinga Sikwebu in a discussion about how South Africa, once the hope of the left after 1994, yet today, the country finds itself at a crossroads.

The event takes place on 3 May at 11am.

Professor Jonathan Jansen and 567 talk-show host and journalist Lester Kiewit will discuss Jansen’s book, Breaking Bread, on 3 May at 12.30pm.

In this memoir, Jansen returns to his youth in a loving, fiercely evangelical family on the Cape Flats and becoming the first of his generation to make it to tertiary education.

Veteran editor Ryland Fisher joins journalists Cristal Oderson and Carryn-Ann Nel with broadcaster Jody Hendricks on 3 May at 3.30pm. The topic is Print Media or Digtal – how do we interpret the news?

Celebrated poet Antjie Krog will join Mia Spies to talk about her genre-busting book, Die binnerym van bloed (impossible to translate and no one would dare).

Krog’s mother, Dot Serfontein, was a celebrated writer. Through letters, diary entries and recordings, Krog investigates in this work the creative influences, ideological differences and the realities of growing old. The discussion takes place on 4 May at 9.30am.

There are more discussions than those listed above. For a full programme, see here. DM

Disclosure: Marianne Thamm serves on the Suidoosterfees Board.

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South Africa

Fiction and fact

Food and history

Where new work is sparked