On Thursday 15 October, the University of Oxford’s African Studies Centre Seminar hosted Elleke. She was in conversation with Oxford’s Wale Adebanwi about To the Volcano.
Watch the video below!
On Thursday 15 October, the University of Oxford’s African Studies Centre Seminar hosted Elleke. She was in conversation with Oxford’s Wale Adebanwi about To the Volcano.
Watch the video below!
Oxford’s African Studies Centre Seminar will be held online this term, at 3:30 pm on Thursdays. All are welcome. For our first seminar on Thursday, October 15, at 3:30 pm, we will be hosting Elleke Boehmer (University of Oxford) in conversation with Wale Adebanwi (University of Oxford). Professor Boehmer will be speaking about her book, To the Volcano and Other Stories.
The link to join the seminar is https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a1ea4ffa3d58448bfb40e318063167385%40thread.tacv2/1601919834723?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22cc95de1b-97f5-4f93-b4ba-fe68b852cf91%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2212effa7e-0e47-44b5-872f-f17cbf33651c%22%7d
(Please join with cameras off and your sound muted (there will be an opportunity for questions and discussion after the talk.)
We’re delighted that To the Volcano has been longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2020.
The Edge Hill Prize is the only UK based award to recognise excellence in a single authored short story collection.
Paul Woodgate has written a wonderful review of To the Volcano for The Short Story. Here’s an excerpt:
Read the full reviewEach story, delivered with a minimal grace and a compassionate eye for all points of view, offers a new angle. Powerful, touching and razor-sharp, they provide multiple entry points to view the complex morality change places on us as individuals and the societies we inhabit. Whichever way you turn these stories, the light of experience is clear to see and the emotion rings true.
Homi Bhabha has reviewed Postcolonial Poetics for Critical Inquiry. Some highlights include:
It is difficult to do justice, in a brief review, to a book as detailed and deliberative as Postcolonial Poetics. Elleke Boehmer’s literary readings range across diverse literatures, many identified with the global south, but almost all of them breaking the bounds of cultural containment while crossing the limits of sovereign territorial borders. [. . .] The score of a work––its range of voices, its tonal transformations, its mediations of mobility, its orchestration of cultural signs and political dissonances––far exceeds its adherence to any ideological or political core.
And:
Boehmer is a distinguished novelist and poet. From her subtle writing we learn the virtue of waiting and watching for the story to appear in its own time. Boehmer’s poetics generate their own warmth and weather, and her gift lies in her ability to allow works of literature to bear fruit in the seasons of their becoming.
The Book Lounge was host to the launch of To the Volcano in Cape Town last month, where Elleke was in conversation with Barbara Boswell of the Department of English at UCT.
"Delicious, delectable, enchanting, well-crafted, fascinating…" only a few of the adjectives Barbara Boswell used to describe #ToTheVolcano by @ellekeboehmer last night at the @book_lounge launch of the book. pic.twitter.com/coojggWroJ
— Dr Karina M. Szczurek (@KarinaMSzczurek) February 26, 2020
Southern light – anyone who has experienced it recognises instantly – the blazing, concentrated, white-blue light of the southern hemisphere. It bakes the short stories in To the Volcano, which are set in Argentina, South Australia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. This light is in many ways their ultimate source.
In my youth, Durban-born, I always took this light for granted, that is, until suddenly I didn’t have it any more. I had moved to a place 51 degrees north and never thought how much I’d miss it. I’ve spent my time since working my way back to it.
Anjali Joseph wrote an excellent review of To the Volcano for the TLS in February. A highlight:
In their best, often their most surreal moments, Elleke Boehmer’s stories are memorably lifelike.
The Stellenbosch launch of To the Volcano and Other Stories will take place at the Protea Boekwinkel on 4 March 2020.
Elleke will be in conversation with Dr Wamuwi Mbao.
Please RSVP to akruger@proteaboekwinkel.com.
The Cape Town launch of To the Volcano and Other Stories will take place at the Book Lounge on 25 February 2020.
Elleke will be in conversation with Dr Barbara Boswell.
Please RSVP to booklounge@gmail.com.