With the water crisis in Cape Town creating increased awareness of green issues, it’s good to see that the Franschhoek Literary Festival has three sessions where the focus is decidedly on water and sustainability issues.
Saturday 19 May at 10h00 – The conscious kitchen
[53] The conscious kitchen (Council Chamber): Every bite, every piece of packaging – and every kilometre that your food travels from origin to plate – matters. Science journalist Leonie Joubert exposes the gritty reality with Nompumelelo Mqwebu, Daisy Jones (Star Fish), and Nico Verster (Safari and Spices).
Saturday 19 May at 16h00 – The last drop
[96] The last drop (NG Church): Our precious water resources are abused and threatened; how did we get into this mess and how can we get out? Leonie Joubert discusses with Jacklyn Cock (Writing the Ancestral River), Helen Moffett (101 Water Wise Ways) and Vishwas Satgar (The Climate Crisis).
Sunday 20 May at 11h30 – A one-on-one with Vishwas Satgar
[115] A one-on-one with Vishwas Satgar (Travellers’ Lodge): We know that the climate crisis exists, but how does it change us? Richard Poplak explores the political, social and economic impact of a crumbling ecology with Vishwas Satgar.
Click here to book for these or other sessions at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.
The authors and Panelists in these Franschhoek Literary Festival sessions:
Leonie Joubert’s writing explores the intersection between development, environment, and social justice: climate change, energy issues, environmental change, and the political economy of hunger and obesity in the world of ‘Big Food’. She has five books under her belt, and many other forms of writing. Leonie was the 2007 Ruth First Fellow, was listed in the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans You Must Take To Lunch (2008), and named the 2009 SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year (print/internet category).
Daisy Jones is the author of Star Fish, the Sunday Times Best Cookbook of the Year (2014). She also wrote Real Food: Healthy, Happy Children, which was shortlisted for Best Cookbook of the Year in 2015. Daisy Jones is currently co-authoring a series of three novels.
Nompumelelo Mqwebu – founder of the Mzansi International Culinary Festival (MICF) and Chef owner of Africa Meets Europe Cuisine, is an enterprising chef who has travelled the world honing her skills. Her debut cookbook Through the Eyes of an African Chef is the South African winner of the First Book and Self Published categories in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
Nico Verster – over the past two years Nico has been travelling and studying North, East and West African cuisine to create his new book, Safaris & Spices. Destinations include Morocco, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Madagascar, to name a few.
Jacklyn Cock is a professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and an honorary research professor in the Society, Work and Development (SWOP) Institute. Her best known books are Maids and Madams, A study in the politics of exploitation, people, politics and the environment, and The War Against Ourselves. Nature, Power and Justice.
Helen Moffett is an author, editor, academic and feminist activist. Her publications include university textbooks, a treasury of landscape writings, Lovely Beyond Any Singing, a cricket book (with the late Bob Woolmer and Tim Noakes), an animal charity anthology (Stray, with Diane Awerbuck) and the Girl Walks In erotica series (with Sarah Lotz and Paige Nick under the nom de plume Helena S. Paige). She’s published two poetry collections – Strange Fruit (Modjaji Books) and Prunings (uHlanga Press). Recent projects include the Short Story Day Africa anthology, Migrations, and a memoir of Rape Crisis.
Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Development Studies at WITS. His research interests include emancipatory futures, green global political economy, and critical theory. He has been an activist for over three decades. He edits the democratic Marxism book series for which he received a distinguished contribution award from the World Association of Political Economy.
Richard Poplak is an award-winning author, journalist, graphic novelist and a senior correspondent at South Africa’s Daily Maverick news site. He has spent the last five years travelling Africa, researching a book that interrogates the idea of a rising Africa, entitled Continental Shift: A Journey Through Africa’s Changing Fortunes (Jonathan Ball, 2016). He is a member of the international journalist collective Deca.
Franschhoek Literary Festival Info
The Festival runs from Friday to Sunday during the third weekend in May, preceded by a Book Week for Young Readers. The events take place in a variety of village venues within a few minutes’ walk of each other, creating a vibrant ambience in streets buzzing with book-lovers.
The emphasis is on informal discussions and spirited debates between several writers with a chairperson, or one-on-one conversations and occasional talks. Starting at 10am and ending at 5pm, up to nine one-hour events run concurrently with half an hour between each (except where otherwise stated).
INFO: For further information or general enquiries about the Festival, email Sheenagh at help@flf.co.za or visit
