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Happy new
year! Is it too late to say that? Well, since 2020 was so very
2020, we'll never get tired of saying goodbye to it. It's looking
like 2021 will be dealing its own share of twists and turns (such
an understatement), but there is always the hope that each year is
better than the last, and that's what we're taking with us as we
head into these uncertain days ahead. We're glad for your continued
support through all of it.
With that said, we do have lots to
look forward to here at Catalyst. We're still releasing great books
by great authors, and this month has been a pretty good one for
that. In this month's newsletter, you'll get to learn more about
two of new releases, celebrate a forthcoming one, and cheer about a
brand new award-winner.
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Out Now: Divine Justice
Rae Valentine is a newly-minted private investigator. She’s also
fresh off a breakup, a recovering addict, and struggling to heal
from a past trauma. When she’s hired to find a set of missing
diamonds, she finds herself the target of a violent gang of white
supremacists and religious zealots who intend to use her and
destroy her for sport. As a victim of a kidnapping, she does what
she can to protect herself from these depraved and barbarous men,
and to save her PI partner, Vincent Saldana, from certain death.
From Cape Town to the banks of the Orange River in Namibia, the
tension rises as Rae fights for her life and discovers that the
missing diamonds are linked to the illicit dealings of the brutal
gang without conscience. Publishers
Weekly praised the book, writing, "Staccato prose
moves the action along at a machine-gun pace reminiscent of classic
hard-boiled mysteries. Rae and the cutthroat streets of Cape Town
aren’t for the faint of heart, but fans of George V. Higgins and
James Ellroy are sure to have a blast.”
Joanne has
written a great essay for CrimeReads
on how the rise of white supremacy and authoritarianism, both in
South Africa and the US, served as a backdrop for Divine Justice:
These issues of race, hate, but particularly the
ideology of neo-fascism and white supremacy, became the driving
force behind my novel, Divine Justice. I wanted to explore the
age-old, yet sadly reemerging, issues around race and nationalism.
I was interested in the re-emerging ‘hate’, and the re-emerging
focus on the ‘threat of the other.’
You can
also read a Q&A with Joanne at our site.
Divine Justice
is out now.
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Out Now: The Theory of Flight
Set in an unnamed country in southern Africa, The Theory of Flight
traces decades of national history— war, colonization, the struggle
for freedom — through the lives, loves, and events of several
interconnected families. This is a story of love and loss told
across generations.
As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei
Hospital, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her
impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that
transcend time and space. With the lightest of touches, and with an
overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel explores, through the
lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground,
the many ways we lose those we love before they die. The book has
earned a starred review from Publishers
Weekly, and the South African release was awarded the
Barry Ronge Prize for Fiction.
Visit Literary Hub to read an essay by Siphiwe on how
discovering the rich history of ZImbabwean literature helped her
craft her own novel.
I loved all these books and I completely lost myself
in them. I never, not once, paused to think about why my world was
not reflected back to me in the books that I read. None of these
books had people who looked like me in them and it did not bother
me at all. But after reading Nervous Conditions I wondered why
everything around me had not encouraged me to read more local
fiction.
You can
also read a Q&A with Siphiwe at our site.
The Theory of
Flight is out now.
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Coming Soon: Young Blood
It's always great to see our books getting some buzz. The lastest
title that's getting people talking is Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe, a
coming-of-age/crime novel set in the South African township of
Umlazi. Candid and unapologetic, Young Blood centers on Sipho, a
17-year-old who has fallen deeper and deeper into a life of crime
as part of a carjacking syndicate. Sipho finds out how far he can
push his luck before the damage is irrevocable—and the consequences
deadly.
The book was included on CrimeReads
list of Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021;
Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of the Booker-Prize-nominated This
Mournable Body, named it as one of her ten favorite books in Vulture;
author Chris Abani praised it, writing, "With elegance and
satisfying language, Mzobe draws the world of a South African
Township with difficulty and a simultaneous tenderness and
hope"; and Paul Harding, the Pulitizer-Prize-winning author of
Tinkers,
writes, "Sifiso Mzobe has written a compassionate,
unsentimental, and artful portrait of a young man on the threshold
of trying to preserve his life and his humanity by the very means
that will almost inevitably destroy both.” The South African
release of the novel also earned Sifiso several awards, including
the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. We're excited to
bring this book to US readers this April. Pre-orders are available
now.
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An Award for Small Mercies
It has been an incredible journey for Bridget Krone's middle-grade novel, Small Mercies. It
earned a starred review from Kirkus,
and praise from outlets like School
Library Journal, Africa Access Review, and the New York Journal of Books.
It was also named a Best Middle-Grade Book of 2020 by Kirkus.
It's time
to add one more honor to list.
Small Mercies has been named a 2021 Outstanding International
Book by the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY)!
Congratulations to Bridget and to artist Karen Vermeulen who
created the delightfully whimsical illustrations for the book! (If
this award sounds familiar, it's because another of our books, We Kiss Them with Rain
by Futhi Ntshingila, was an USBBY honoree in 2019!)
You can
learn more about the award, and see all of the honorees at the USBBY website. You can
learn more about Bridget and how she brought Mercy and her family
to the page in this interview on the Kirkus Fully
Booked podcast!
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