The written word will envelop Durban as writers from around South Africa and Africa arrive in Durban for a stimulating week of books, ideas and talk at the 13th Time of the Writer International Writers Festival (9-13 March). The festival, which is hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu- Natal), will feature a diverse gathering of novelists, short story writers, humour writers and political commentators. Within a precarious funding climate the Department of Arts and Culture has provided valued core support to make the production of this year's Time of the Writer possible and thereby help sustain this important platform which brings literature into the public domain. Time of the Writer will also host a tribute evening to the life, creativity and activism of the late Dennis Brutus as the culmination of a full-day colloquium organised by the Centre for Civil Society (UKZN).

 

The writers at the festival include Nigerian Uwem Akpan, whose brilliantly-crafted and nuanced debut collection of stories, Say Youre One of Them, won last years Commonwealth Prize for Literature Best First Book Award. Akpans collection was also selected late last year by Oprah Winfreys Book Club, a prized honour in the publishing world. Joining him in the panel discussion, Why I Write What I Write, will be the Durban-born Imraan Coovadia. Coovadia has established himself over three provoking and intelligent novels, as one of the leading contemporary South African writers. Zakes Mda, a true giant of the South African literary landscape, makes a welcome return to the festival, having just published Black Diamond, which The Weekender called: a defiantly revealing novel about contemporary South Africa…sane and insane, evocative and hilarious… The prolific Mda is the author of South African classics such as The Whale Caller, The Madonna of Excelsior, The Heart of Redness and Ways of Dying amongst others.

The eThekwini Municipal Libraries' Ulwazi Programme needs your help to write the history of soccer in Durban.  If you have stories of famous football players or clubs in or from Durban please submit them, along with any photographs or audio/video recordings.

They currently have a category Soccer in Durban but could do with a lot more information on what made soccer so vibrant in Durban, from the 50s and 60s up until the present day.