The Empty Chair by PEN SA
Detajet e Kanalit
The Empty Chair by PEN SA
In The Empty Chair Podcast: A Transatlantic Conversation, PEN South Africa hosts authors, academics and activists based in South Africa and the USA. The podcast focuses on books, writing, social justice, freedom of expression, shared histories and possible futures. Each of our episodes is dedicated...
Episode të Fundit
63 episode
S9 E7 Hugo ka Canham & Grace A. Musila: Death, Life & Mpondo Theory
Grace A. Musila asks Hugo ka Canham about his book Riotous Deathscapes. They explore riotous methods, rural Mpondoland, precarity, storytelling, death...
S9 E6 Gabeba Baderoon, Roger Reeves & Bongani Kona: Intimacy & Interiority
Bongani Kona interviews Gabeba Baderoon and Roger Reeves about their books The History of Intimacy and Dark Days: Fugitive Essays. They remember early...
S9 E5 John Marnell, Alejandra Oliva & Kudakwashe Vanyoro: Migration, Refuge & Solidarity
Kudakwashe Vanyoro interviews John Marnell and Alejandra Oliva about their books Seeking Sanctuary and Rivermouth. They deliberate about telling other...
S9 E4 Camille T. Dungy & Yewande Omotoso: Gardening & Creating a Space of Welcome
Yewande Omotoso asks Camille Dungy about her latest book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. They delve into nature writing, gardening, radic...
S9 E3 LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Sihle Ntuli & Vuyokazi Ngemntu: Tracing Lineages & Imagining Futures
Vuyokazi Ngemntu invites LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Sihle Ntuli to reflect on their poetic practice, language and dispossession, literacies, influenc...
S9 E2 Ashwin Desai, Goolam Vahed & Betty Govinden: Durban’s Casbah – “A City Within a City”
Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed talk with Betty Govinden about their book Durban’s Casbah. They reflect on personal and collective pasts, bunny chows an...
S9 E1: Sarah Lubala, Mahtem Shiferraw & Phillippa Yaa de Villiers: Writing Across Time
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers interviews Sarah Lubala and Mahtem Shiferraw about their poetry collections, A History of Disappearance and Nomenclatures of...
S8 E7 Jade Song & Mia Arderne: Mermaids, Body Horror & Becoming
Mia Arderne asks Jade Song about their debut novel Chlorine. They discuss beliefs about mermaids, girlhood, magical realism, mental illness, writing a...
S8 E6 Jarred Thompson, Tyriek White & Khanya Mtshali: Debut Novels, Social Critique & Mortality
Khanya Mtshali asks Jarred Thompson and Tyriek White about their novels The Institute for Creative Dying and We Are a Haunting. They share their exper...
S8 E5 KB Brookins & Maneo Mohale: Dreaming of Freedom & Centring Trans Joy
KB Brookins talks with Maneo Mohale about their poetry collection Freedom House. They contemplate poetry, social justice, community, police brutality,...
S8E4 Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Idra Novey & Sean O’Toole: The Exhilaration of Visual Art
Sean O’Toole asks Bronwyn Law-Viljoen and Idra Novey about their novels Notes on Falling and Take What You Need. They discuss the emotional repertoire...
S8E3 Manuel Muñoz and Lester Walbrugh: "The Real Mystery of Everyday Stories"
Lester Walbrugh asks Manuel Muñoz about his latest collection of short stories: The Consequences. Manuel reflects on his Mexican-American identity, wo...
S8E2 Cristina Rivera Garza and Stacy Hardy: Femicide, Justice and Love
Cristina Rivera Garza is in conversation with Stacy Hardy about her book Liliana’s Invincible Summer. Cristina reflects on the experience of writing t...
S8E1 Charif Shanahan and Bongani Kona: Racism, Positionality and A Life in Poetry
Bongani Kona asks poet Charif Shanahan about his latest collection Trace Evidence: poems (Tin House, 2023). Charif reflects on his family background,...
S7E8: Noni Jabavu - Hiding in Plain Sight
Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi asks Athambile Masola and Makhosazana Xaba about their book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home.
They reflect on when t...
S7E7: Darryl Pinckney Remembers Elizabeth Hardwick and 1970s New York
Angelo Fick asks Darryl Pinckney about his book Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan.
Darryl rem...
S7E6 Barbara Masekela and Sisonke Msimang in Conversation: “The Great Secret of History”
Sisonke Msimang interviews Barbara Masekela about her memoir Poli Poli. Barbara remembers her childhood home with her grandmother and honours her gene...
S7E5: Robin Coste Lewis and Bongani Kona in Conversation: “Exploding the Myth of Time”
Bongani Kona hosts Robin Coste Lewis for a discussion of her award-winning poetry collections To the Realisation of Perfect Helplessness and Voyage of...
S7E4: Celebrating Keorapetse Kgositsile: “Without Love There Is No Revolution That Matters”
Sandile Ngidi and Uhuru Phalafala honour the life and legacy of Keorapetse “Bra Willie” Kgositsile.
Sandile asks Uhuru about Kgositsile’s exile...
S7E3: Steve Biko, Black Consciousness and the SASO/BPC Trial
Ekow Duker asks Millard Arnold about his book The Testimony of Steve Biko. They consider the significance of Biko’s four and a half days on the witnes...
S7E2: Remembering Regina Gelana Twala
Nosipho Mngomezulu asks Joel Cabrita about her groundbreaking new book Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala. Together, they discuss Twala...
S7E1: Reflections on Black History Month
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 Hist...
S6E4 Historical Fiction and Complicated Families
Thando Njovane chairs a discussion with Rešoketšwe Manenzhe and LaToya Watkins about their debut novels Scatterlings and Perish, respectively. They re...
S6E3 Crime Fiction: Searching for a Resolution
Angela Makholwa interviews Margie Orford and Marcie Rendon about their latest novels The Eye of the Beholder and Sinister Graves, respectively. They r...
S6E2: Climate Crisis & Compassion in the Digital Age
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...
S6E1: Storytelling: A Way to Make Sense of the World
Baeletsi Tsatsi interviews Sheila Arnold and Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa about the art of storytelling.
They propose definitions of storytell...
S5E8: Queer Utopia and Activism
Efemia Chela asks Mark Gevisser and Sarah Schulman about their books The Pink Line and Let the Record Show, respectively.
They share lessons fro...
S5E7: Visual Memory, Artistic Practice & Haunted Spaces
Dylan Valley interviews Kitso Lynn Lelliott and Bayeté Ross Smith about their artistic practice and projects.
Kitso reflects on her PhD, "South...
S5E6: A Language of the Otherwise & the Meaning of Home
PEN SA board member Bongani Kona interviews Claire Schwartz and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon.
They address issues of state violence, complicity, the...
S5E5: The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs
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)...
S5E4 Writing Water
Nikiwe Solomon and Lucas Bessire share their experiences of researching and writing about rivers in Cape Town and aquifers in Kansas. They contemplate...
S5E3 Remembrance and Justice
Julie Otsuka talks to Bongani Kona about her three novels: When the Emperor was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers. Their capacious conv...
S5E2 The Art of Paying Attention
Wamuwi Mbao asks Julian Lucas about the role of the critic, the value of criticism, working outside the academy, his writing process and what he’s rea...
S5E1 Girlhood, Bodies and New Possibilities of Being
Zethu Matebeni chairs a conversation with Venita Blackburn, Thenjiwe Mswane and Lindiwe Nkutha. Our guests contemplate the depictions of girlhood, fam...
S5 Bonus Episode: Readings by Venita Blackburn, Thenjiwe Mswane & Lindiwe Nkutha
In this bonus episode, Venita reads "Smoothies" from How to Wrestle a Girl; Lindiwe reads the opening section titled ‘Anna’ from the story “Jocasta's...
Grassroots Movements, Housing and Hope
In our final episode of season four, Edward Webster chairs a conversation with Akira Drake Rodriguez and Trevor Ngwane about their books.
Edward...
Behind the Scenes at Africa Is a Country & The Johannesburg Review of Books
In our sixth episode of season four, Sindi-Leigh McBride interviews Sean Jacobs and Ben Williams. Sindi-Leigh is a writer from Johannesburg, and a PhD...
A Language for Healing and Tenderness
In our fifth episode of season four, Barbara Boswell interviews Natalie Diaz and vangile gantsho about their poetry.
Barbara Boswell is an autho...
Resistance, Revolts and Resilience in Graphic Novels
In our fourth episode of season four, Hlonipha Mokoena chairs a conversation with Rebecca Hall and Richard Conyngham about their graphic novels.
...
The 70th Anniversary of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
In our third episode of season four, Sikhumbuzo Mngadi and Aretha Phiri assess the South African legacy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, 70 years aft...