Salman Rushdie, novelist and Booker Prize-winner, will head the list of writers, publishers, academics, performers and photographers taking part in this year’s Weekly Mail Book Week.
Rushdie, author of Midnight’s Children and Shame, will deliver a keynote address on censorship and take part in panel discussions in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
His latest book, due to be launched in South Africa at the Book Week, is short-listed for what could be Rushdie’s second Booker Prize.
He is being flown out for the Book Week — now this country’s main literary event — in conjunction with the Congress of South African Writers and the British Council.
Under the theme ‘Writers Speak’, the week involves discussions, readings, performances, speeches, new book launches and signings by the country’s leading literary figures.
Speakers include two other Booker Prize winners, Nadine Gordimer and John Coetzee; writers Achmat Danger, Njabulo Ndebele, Richard Rive, EM Macphail and Damon Galgut; photographers Obie Oberholzer, Omar Badsha and David Goldblatt; historians Charles van Onselen, Peter Delius and Motlatse Tlabane; and playwrights Malcolm Purkey, Gcina Mhlope and Neil McCarthy.
The Book Week starts in Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre on October 31 and in Johannesburg’s Market Theatre on November 7.
Booking opens on Monday.