Welcome to September Book Club!
I’m so excited to share the work of award-winning South African author, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers.
Please read either Everyday Wife, or Taller Than Buildings, and submit your questions and comments by Wednesday, 16 September. I know my featured readers in the states are already either finished or in the process of reading. These are short books, so you could easily read both of them before mid-September, but at least please read one.
“Phillippa Yaa de Villiers illuminates relationships of many kinds and intensities – between lovers, children and parents, the politics of emotion shared and remembered and confronted, sustained across the distance of place or memory.”
-Margaret Busby
The author will answer your questions!
Like each of the authors before her (Futhi Ntshingila and Nthikeng Mohlele), Phillippa Yaa de Villiers has agreed to reply to your questions and comments on this site.
(To see how the Q&A went for July and August, please click here and here.)
Remember every question and photo you send enters you for a chance to win a signed book from the author!
How to Participate:
Read about her work below, and get your hands on one or both of these books if you haven’t already. If you’re in the states, Taller Than Buildings is available as a Kindle ebook, and Everyday Wife is available in paperback at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Please submit questions and/or photos by 16 September. For full details on our online book club, click here. If you or your book club would like to become Featured Readers, click here for details.
Submit by 16 September to marla@marlasinkdruzgal.com for a chance to win an autographed book from the author!
The Everyday Wife
The Everyday Wife won the 2011 South African Literary Award for a poetry collection
The everyday wife is a handy little book of practical poetry for any occasion. Mischievous and profound words recreate everyday life in South Africa and other parts of the world. In this, her second volume of poetry, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers unravels the security blanket of routines, exposing the soul of the quotidian.
Taller Than Buildings
“The poems in Taller than Buildings are stories about, and vignettes of life in and around South Africa. They’re crafted from sensitive observation and narrated with a verve, an energy that on reflection, renders the collection’s title particularly apt.”
–Moira Richards, Rattle e-Review
Sample poem from Taller Than Buildings:
The River
One day the Hillbrow Tower started to cry.
Real tears poured down its sides
collected in the gutters,
and ran down Banket Street,
and when
the other buildings saw the tower’s sadness
they started to weep in sympathy.
Soon the whole city was sobbing,
the tears joined other tears
and filled the depressions and valleys.
They covered the koppies,
and collected in City Deep,
cascading over Gold Reef City
flooding Fordsburg
and soaking Soweto.
They flowed until they became a river
that carried us into the night,
where our dreams grew
taller than buildings
taller than buildings
About the Author
- Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers -
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers is a multi-award-winning writer, performer and editor. After writing television scripts for ten years, she won a place on the British Council/ Crossing Borders programme and a grant from the Centre for the Book to publish her first volume of poetry Taller than Buildings (2006). Her poetry and prose are widely published in journals and anthologies. Her one-woman show, Original Skin, has toured in South Africa and went abroad in 2010. She has performed her poetry from Cuba to Cape Town, Berlin to Harare and of course in her home town, Jozi where she lives with an assortment of animals and her son.
-source: African Books Collective
Upcoming Books:
*Please note: Due to transportation time to send books to the states, I needed to shuffle the order of the next few titles. Please begin reading one of Niq Mhlongo’s books for our October Book Club. Links to each of his books are below…
October: Niq Mhlongo
Book(s): Way Back Home, Dog Eat Dog, After Tears
Read-by-Date: 16 December 2015
November: Mzilikazi wa Afrika
Book(s): Nothing Left to Steal
Read-by Date: 11 November 2015 PRE-ORDER ASAP by emailing marla@marlasinkdruzgal.com . This book is currently only available as an e-book, but I can ship a paperback to you from South Africa.
December: Mandla Langa
Book(s): The Texture of Shadows
Read-by-Date: 16 December 2015 PRE-ORDER ASAP by emailing marla@marlasinkdruzgal.com . This book is currently only available as an e-book, but I can ship a paperback to you from South Africa.
January through May, 2016
Thando Mgqolozana: A Man Who is Not a Man
Mamle Wolo: The Kaya-Girl
Carol Campbell: Esther’s House
Ekow Duker: Dying in New York
Wame Molefhe: Go Tell the Sun
Sabata-mpho Mokae: Book launch this autumn, and he’s taking time for us online as well! Title to be announced in August.
2 thoughts on “What Will You Say to Phillippa Yaa de Villiers?”
Comments are closed.