When a breakfast event celebrating independent publishing turns into thought provoking discussion about an unstable world and the role of writers

Jacana Media at the event introduced their brand-new titles includingA Rare Gift to the Struggle: Ma Vesta Smith and The Everyday Politics of Liberation – A powerful biography of a lifelong activist,The Splendid Tapestry of African Life – A sweeping collection of essays on Africa’s geopolitics, culture, and history,Together Apart: The Story of Living in Apartheid – A beautifully illustrated, accessible guide to explaining apartheid. This book is aimed at a younger audience, Buried in the Chest – An award-winning novel exploring identity, love, and African mythology, and Midnight in the Morgue – The Caine Prize for African Writing 2024 anthology, featuring gripping short stories from across the continent.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

Writers often express their dreams, imaginations and even disgust about the human condition through the magic of words they weave together to tell a story, chant, celebrate or reimagine a different society from the one they find themselves in. Often it is a society better than the one they find themselves in.

But on Friday, the dim view of contemporary society, in which a dangerous cocktail of conservative politics, narrow nationalism, populism and straight-forward lies seem to be a gate-way to power by even the most crooked in society, writers who gathered at Jacana Media in Johannesburg verbalized their frustration instead of writing about it.

There is certainly little doubt that there is an unstable contemporary spacein the world, that is clearly dangerous.  This is thesurge of toxic politics of conservatism in the world, including its cousins of narrow nationalism, often clothed in ordinarily noble concepts such as patriotism, the love of one’s country first and so forth and so on. Unfortunately, and opportunistically this space is increasingly becoming a refuge for criminals, both rehabilitated and those that are not or incapable of being rehabilitated, presenting and parading themselves as leaders, and in some cases as saviours of communities under siege. This siege coming in various forms: disease, unemployment, poverty and neglect by the political and business elite who have simply stopped to care about the common man and common women among them, has created this unstable vacuum that demagogues are now trying to fill up, falling over each other even in the process.

Under such circumstances, the desperate and helpless will embrace anything, believing that anything besides their current circumstances should be better. However, this situation is akin to a monster shouting from the skies to little kids about to be swallowed by a huge gaping hole on the ground, that if they recognized the monster as the King of the Universe, they too can be saved, only for the desperate little ones to be indeed saved from falling into the whole, but only to end up in the stomach of the monster.

At this breakfast, Jacana marked a milestone, celebrating 23 years of daring publishing, including publishing the views of very independent authors, writers both in private discussions among themselves as well as on the podium, the views expressed by the writers gathered there had nothing positive to say about the contemporary world we live in.

Bridget Impey one of the two matriarchs of Jacana Media, the other half being Maggie Davey, evoked the words of the late revolutionary Che Guevara to try and create a mood at the event that in many ways summarises the urgent need for change from this world society finds itself in to a new imagine world ideal for human habitation and creativity.

Of course, Jacana Media billed the event as a celebration, for celebration the publishing entity had to do because the publishing sector is currently facing a lot of challenges in general, particularly publishers of independent thought, such as the writers the company publishes.

In a tough publishing environment, it becomes tempting to publish only books that will sell, even as they lack depth and literary value, such as memoir s of celebrities and populist politicians, out of jail criminals claiming to have met their Damascus while in jail, and of course in South Africa’s context, books about cooking. In fact, Davey summarised the dilemma the company continues to face.

“The publishing sector currently is tough, especially when it comes to publishing independent thought. At some stage, I even suggested that we publishing cooking books as these are clearly best sellers in South Africa. But when I suggested that, they sent me home,” Davey quipped.

However, despite the tough publishing environment faced by especially middle level independent publishers such as Jacana, the company, which is now chaired by academic and author Professor William Gumede, appears to be head for a positive future of independent publishing.

This sense of positive vibes is well captured in the invitations they sent to the guests.

“We are celebrating you too, all our friends and colleagues, who have enabled us to publish some of the most imaginative, award-winning and clear-thinking minds of our time.

You, the Jacana community, are a group with such talent, commitment, vision, excitement, expertise and dedication to the power of literature, and we want to thank you – the authors, the printers, the freelancers, the editors, the proofreaders, the designers, the legal experts, the media, the booksellers, the librarians, the counsellors, the researchers, the teachers and our funders and supporters. “We are because you are.”

However, the state of the world was still well reminded to us by the keynote speaker during the breakfast, none other than the extraordinarily talented and visionary Gregory Maqomawho besides speaking about his legacy project – his impact having extended beyond the world of dance, stages and screens to literature, having authored three titles for younger generations.

“The world that we live in right now is dangerous. It is you, the writers’ responsibility to imagine a new and better world through the words you write. We rely on you to make sense of the world, creating a new reality through you writing,” Maqoma said.

Gumede in his closing remarks repeated the same message of an unstable world we currently in and how it is upon writers to reimagine a new world through their creativity.

The guests were also introduced to two debut debut writers who so impressed the From Pitch to Publication adjudication panel that they now have publishing deals in the bag, and Jacana’ Media’s ’25 for ’25’: 25 featured women writers who bring their diverse and nuanced insights, provocations and acuity to their 2025 authors list.  

The following are Jacana media’s forthcoming titles catalogue for the first half of the year:

Current highlights
A Rare Gift to the Struggle: Ma Vesta Smith and The Everyday Politics of Liberation – A powerful biography of a lifelong activist.
The Splendid Tapestry of African Life – A sweeping collection of essays on Africa’s geopolitics, culture, and history.
Together Apart: The Story of Living in Apartheid – A beautifully illustrated, accessible guide to explaining apartheid. This book is aimed at a younger audience.
Buried in the Chest – An award-winning novel exploring identity, love, and African mythology.
Midnight in the Morgue – The Caine Prize for African Writing 2024 anthology, featuring gripping short stories from across the continent.

Coming in March
Available Light – A compelling biography of activist and artist Omar Badsha.
One Call Away – Dr. Anne Biccard’s latest witty and fast-paced account of life in the ER.
Song of a Slave Girl – A historical romance set in the Cape Colony’s era of slavery.