Nosipho Mngomezulu asks Joel Cabrita about her groundbreaking new book Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala. Together, they discuss Twala’s life in South Africa and Eswatini, her writing (ethnography, fiction, letters and newspaper columns), academic gatekeeping, systems of oppression, Twala’s subversive politics as well as her family and legacy. Joel reflects on her own positionality, the ethics of biography, legal and copyright issues, and the hope that Twala’s words finally find the audience she was denied in her lifetime. Nosipho Mngomezulu is a lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of the Witwatersrand and a Research Fellow in Science Communication at Stellenbosch University’s Journalism Department. Joel Cabrita is the Susan Ford Dorsey Director of the Center for African Studies and an associate professor of African history at Stanford University. She is also a senior research associate in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Her most recent book is Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala (Ohio University Press and Wits University Press, 2023). In this episode we stand in solidarity with Salma al-Shehab, a PhD student, women’s rights activist and academic. You can read more about her case here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/saudi-authorities-must-release-womens-rights-activist-salma-al-shehab Nosipho and Joel share powerful messages and tributes for Salma. Nosipho reads an extract from “An Otherwise” by Solmaz Sharif and Joel reads “When the Copperplate Cracks” by Imtiaz Dharker. (You can hear Imtiaz read it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkAhvoUzakE) This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.

Mandisa Haarhoff interviews Jaclyn Cole in the first episode of our Black History season. This episode airs on 28 February, the last day of Black History month 2023, and provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of this month. Among other topics, Mandisa and Jaclyn consider the significance of Howard University, African American studies, Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), Octavia E. Butler’s Parable Series and collective grief. Jaclyn also reads her “Creators’ Manifesto”. Mandisa Haarhoff is an assistant professor of comparative literature at Penn State University and a board member of PEN SA. Jaclyn Cole is a career diplomat with over fifteen years in the U.S. Foreign Service currently serving as the Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate General Durban. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Burundian journalist Floriane Irangabiye. You can read more about her case in articles by Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr16/6414/2023/en/ and Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/02/burundi-journalists-conviction-violates-free-speech-rights Mandisa reads the poem “Democracy” by Langston Hughes, and Jaclyn reads extracts from Butler’s The Parable of the Talents as tributes to Floriane. This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.

Thando Njovane chairs a discussion with Rešoketšwe Manenzhe and LaToya Watkins about their debut novels Scatterlings and Perish, respectively. They reveal which authors influenced their work, contemplate the transatlantic legacy of slavery and the South African Immorality Act (1927), de-centring whiteness, inter-generational trauma, stories of mothers and daughters, and possibilities of healing. Thando Njovane is a lecturer and an Andrew Mellon early career scholar in the Department of Literary Studies in English at Rhodes University. Rešoketšwe Manenzhe is a South African villager and storyteller. Her award-winning novel Scatterlings was first published by Jacana Media in 2020. LaToya Watkins was born in Texas and received a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish was published by Tiny Reparations Books in August 2022. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Zimbabweans Tsitsi Dangarembga and Julie Barnes. You can read more about their case here: https://pen-international.org/campaigns/day-of-the-imprisoned-writer-2022 and read PEN SA’s statement on their conviction here: https://twitter.com/pen_southafrica/status/1575822947335344128 This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

Angela Makholwa interviews Margie Orford and Marcie Rendon about their latest novels The Eye of the Beholder and Sinister Graves, respectively. They reflect on what first attracted them to the crime fiction genre. They grapple with violence against women, ongoing trauma, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, police brutality and which bodies matter. They also celebrate the Little Earth Protectors and the significance of The PEN International Women's Manifesto. Angela Makholwa is the author of five novels, including Red Ink (Pan Macmillan, 2007). Margie Orford is the former president of PEN South Africa and currently lives in London. She is the author of the Clare Hart novels. The Eye of the Beholder (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2022) is her latest book. Marcie Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation. She lives in Minneapolis and her crime novels Sinister Graves, Girl Gone Missing and Murder on the Red River are available through Soho Crime. In this episode we stand in solidarity with José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, a renowned journalist detained in Guatemala. You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/campaigns/day-of-the-imprisoned-writer-2022 This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

Akil Kumarasamy and Alistair Mackay talk to Abdul-Malik Sibabalwe Oscar Masinyana about their novels Meet Us by the Roaring Sea and It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, respectively. They explore ways of writing about the future and imagination as resistance. Their expansive conversation refers to climate collapse, Artificial Intelligence and technology, popular culture, care and hope. Abdul-Malik Sibabalwe Oscar Masinyana is a writer of short fiction, essays and children’s books and is currently working on his debut novel. Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the novel, Meet Us by the Roaring Sea (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), and the linked story collection, Half Gods, (FSG, 2018). She is an assistant professor in the Rutgers University-Newark MFA program. Alistair Mackay is the author of It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, published by Kwela in 2022. He lives in Cape Town. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Egyptian poet and activist, Ahmed Douma. You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/news/prison-writing-by-ahmed-douma This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

Baeletsi Tsatsi interviews Sheila Arnold and Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa about the art of storytelling. They propose definitions of storytelling, reflect on its value, their lineages, how to teach storytelling, the importance of creating community and intergenerational conversation. They also share stories. Baeletsi Tsatsi is a storyteller, writer and story coach. Sheila Arnold is a teaching artist and full-time storyteller, who resides in Hampton, Virginia. She is Artistic Director & Co-Founder of Artists Standing Strong Together (ASST). Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa is a storyteller, published writer and poet. She is co-founder of The Story Club Cape Town. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Server Mustafayev, a Crimean Tatar citizen journalist and human rights defender. You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/campaigns/day-of-the-imprisoned-writer-2022 This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

Efemia Chela asks Mark Gevisser and Sarah Schulman about their books The Pink Line and Let the Record Show, respectively. They share lessons from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), debate visibility politics, the idea of a queer utopia, the relationship between legal reform and social change as well as how to avoid burnout. Efemia Chela is a Zambian-Ghanaian editor living in Johannesburg. She has an MA in Development Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. Mark Gevisser is the award-winning author of Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir and The Pink Line: Journeys across the World’s Queer Frontiers (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2020). Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer and AIDS historian. She is the author of 20 books, most recently Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987-1993 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). In this episode we stand in solidarity with the 15 journalists and one media worker currently held in pre-trial detention in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Their names are: Lezgin Akdeniz, Safiye Alagaş, Serdar Altan, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Ömer Çelik, Suat Doğuhan, Mehmet Ali Ertaş, Ramazan Geciken, Mazlum Doğan Güler, İbrahim Koyuncu, Abdurrahman Öncü, Aziz Oruç, Mehmet Şahin, Remziye Temel, Neşe Toprak and Elif Üngür. You can read more about their case here: https://pen-international.org/news/turkey-journalists-held-in-diyarbakir-must-be-released This is the final episode of season five. We’re taking a break and will be back with season six. Thank you so much for listening! This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

Dylan Valley interviews Kitso Lynn Lelliott and Bayeté Ross Smith about their artistic practice and projects. Kitso reflects on her PhD, "South Atlantic Hauntings: Geographies of Memory, Ancestralities and Re-Memberings”, and Bayeté discusses “Red Summers VR”, his 360 immersive media project about racially motivated domestic terrorism in the U.S. from 1917 to 1921. It’s an expansive conversation that engages with unresolved histories, racial and epistemological violence, the Atlantic Ocean, identities, the afterlives of colonialism, photography, how bodies relate to the world and claiming space. Dylan Valley is a documentary filmmaker and a lecturer at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. Kitso Lynn Lelliott’s practice moves between video installation, film and writing. She is currently a senior lecturer in History of Arts with the Wits school of Arts. Bayeté Ross Smith is an interdisciplinary artist, photographer, filmmaker, and educator. He is a faculty member at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Columbia Law School’s inaugural artist-in-residence. In this episode we stand in solidarity with writer and legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, imprisoned in China. You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/news/china-pen-centres-call-writer-xu-zhiyongs-immediate-release This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

PEN SA board member Bongani Kona interviews Claire Schwartz and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon. They address issues of state violence, complicity, the role of the law, migration, the influence of Black studies and the possibilities of poetry, relations of care and imagining new ways of living alongside one another. Bongani Kona is a writer, editor and lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. Claire Schwartz is the author of the poetry collection Civil Service published by Graywolf Press in 2022 and the culture editor of Jewish Currents. Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand over the past decade. The Blinded City: 10 Years in Inner-City Johannesburg (Pan Macmillan, 2022) is his first sole-authored book. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Perhat Tursun, a Uyghur author who was forcibly disappeared in Xinjiang in 2018. You can read more about his case here: https://www.uyghurpen.org/free-perhat-tursun/ and here: https://pen-international.org/creative-witnesses-take-action-for-writers-at-risk-in-the-asia-pacific-region This podcast series is funded by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

In this special episode, PEN SA president Nadia Davids invites Justice Albie Sachs to reflect on his first book, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (1966) – a testament to his resistance and resilience during the harsh deprivations of imprisonment. Albie shares his experience of spending 168 days in solitary confinement, his struggle to convey the boredom and depression of detention as well as how he found beauty in writing about it. Albie Sachs is an activist, writer and former judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994 – 2009). He is the author of several books, including The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, Justice in South Africa, Sexism and the Law, Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter and The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law. His latest books are We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge (2016) and Oliver Tambo’s Dream (2017). In this episode we stand in solidarity with publisher, human rights defender and civil society leader Osman Kavala. In April 2022, he was sentenced to life in prison in Turkey. Albie has a personal and deeply moving message for Osman, and reads from Nâzım Hikmet’s poem “On Living” as a tribute to him. You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/news/ruling-in-the-gezi-case-the-darkest-day-for-the-judiciary-of-turkey This podcast series is funded by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.