Jane Katjavivi suggested I should sign up with African Books Collective, who would then distribute Modjaji titles internationally. I signed the contract in December and posted it off. Got the signed copy back from Mary Jay, and asked Natascha (my book designer) to send off PDF files to Justin Cox in the USA. Which has lead to the books being posted on the ABC website and buyable by international customers. I believe that ABC use Lightning Source and sell books on a POD basis. I didn’t have to ship stock, just the PDFs, so in its own small way Modjaji has become part of the globalised world.
The problem in the past was if someone from abroad wanted to buy a Modjaji title, the bank charges were so huge that I would have deducted, I may as well have sent them the book for free and paid for the postage myself. Now to see how to market the books internationally. If anyone has ideas or suggestions do let me know.
By the way, the next book to come out of the Modjaji stables is a book, by Jane Katjavivi, it is a memoir called Undisciplined Heart. I asked Margie Orford to do me and Jane a huge favour, which she agreed to do. Over this past weekend amidst matric dances and full houses and all the other things Margie manages to do, she read Jane’s memoir and wrote this shout, which serves well as a blurb too:
Jane Katjavivi’s UNDISCIPLINED HEART weaves the story of Namibia’s liberation struggle, the political journey of a collective heart, with a love story – a journey of a loving heart. This is the story of a young Englishwoman who fell in love with a Namibian exile and who moved from a quiet American town to Namibia, a remote and beautiful country that few people have the privilege to know. At sea at first in the strange new place, Jane builds up a network of intimate friendships with a group of women. They meet weekly to talk about their work, their children, their lives until one of their group dies at 47 of heart failure. A terrible blow to all of them, but Jane’s moving story – of love, moral engagement and a desire to build both family and nation is woven around her own illness – an affliction of the heart that is diagnosed as an ‘ undisciplined heart.’ It is a disease that nearly kills her. It was Frederick Jameson who said once that ‘History is what hurts.’ But Jane Katjavivi’s frank and intimate memoir of love and politics, of survival and finding way to make a home, shows that history is also what heals when it is filtered through a loving heart and an open mind.
Here is Jane Katjavivi’s bio:
Jane Katjavivi has worked in publishing and book development since the early 1980’s. She is an English born, naturalised Namibian. She set up her own publishing company New Namibia Books and later opened a bookshop which specialised in books from and about Africa, and in particular Namibia. She was founding chairperson of the Association of Namibian Publishers and the Namibian Book Development Council, a founder member of the African Publishers’ Network (APNET) and a member of the Management Council of African Books Collective. She writes short stories and is working on a novel. Her memoir, Undisciplined Heart was written while she was in Europe with her husband who was Namibian ambassador to Brussels and Berlin.
Wow! What a launch we had in MacGregor on Wednesday night for Hester se Brood by Hester van der Walt. The owners of the Karoux restaurant, a fairly new MacGregor hot spot, know how to organise a fabulous party. Andre and Kurt are charming, efficient and warmly hospitable hosts. The evening was summery, the Karoo courtyard and fairy lights the perfect setting. Karoux had organised delicious local wines from the MacGregor Wine Farm. Their Colombard is the house white at Karoux and their Shiraz and Pinotage are prizewinners.
Hester specially made bread for the occasion, what a treat. She made foccaccia with delicious toppings and a huge celebratory challah with a chocolatey raisin filling that was so delicious I thought I’d died and gone to heaven after one bite. Positively orgasmic. I think I will have to learn how to make challah. Hester uses only Eureka stone ground flour for her breads.
As people came in they greeted Hester and Lies Hoogendoorn, her partner (whose art work is an integral part of the book, including the cover painting) enthusiastically. The guests bought copies of the books like ‘hot cakes’. Hester sat down to sign and before the more formal part of the proceedings were begun, we had almost sold out of books. I was also thrilled that Natascha Mostert, who did the book design and layout, came to the launch. Hester and Lies were thrilled to meet her and to thank her for her input and sensitive book design work.
The more formal proceedings started with me saying a few words about Modjaji Books and what I am trying to do with this small press. When I first met Hester and Lies to talk about the book, I got my Modjaji feeling, it is an electric lighting up inside of me feeling. While I read the manuscript, the feeling intensified. And during the launch I was afraid I might burst into ecstatic flames. Hester is a gifted writer and a wonderful person, calm, centred, loving, focused and many other things besides. Hester and Lies saw the printed book for the first time at about 3 in the afternoon. The launch was only a few hours later, the most thrilling for me was to see the way the took the book and looked and it and held and paged through it. I could see they loved it. Every now and then they would look a little choked up, a little misty-eyed.
Hester spoke, her is what she said:
It was not difficult to choose bread for tonight. It had to be foccacia. I have a clear memory of my first bite into the crust of its close relative, the ciabatta. I knew immediately that this was real bread – the crust rough and honest like our landscape and the inside crumb tasty and filled with large uneven holes. The ideal bread for breaking with your fingers and for soaking up sauce and for cleaning your plate.
I guess that was the beginning of my search: I wanted to make a perfect ciabatta! I paged through recipe books and I experimented, I waited with bated breath to take the bread from the oven. But then the first cut through the crust was a disappointment – this was not the real thing. Until one day, during a difficult time in my life, a time of burnout in my work, when I had no energy, I stumbled on a special book on artisan bread by Maggie Glezer. That was the start of my life with bread.
Hester se Brood tells the story of that search. I share the what and the why and the how of making real handmade bread in your own kitchen. I tell the story of the oven, the wood and the firemaker, the market, and of this village and its people who provided the womb for the story to grow.
Hester read from the first page of her book
‘n Mens kry brood — en Brood. Dis wat ek besef het toe ek vir die eerste keer in ‘n ciabatta gebyt het; daardie lugtige Italiaanse brood genaamd pantoffel: plat en eerlik met ‘n kors soos ‘n gehaarde landskap. Binne vol groot rysgate, ideaal om met jou vingers te skeur vir die opdoop van daardie laaste souserigheid uit jou boord.
Net daar het my soektog begin, ‘n Geblaai deur resepteboeke het my van die een boekwinkel na die ander geneem. Halfskelm maak ek myself staan by ‘n tafel vol boeke, ‘n resepteboek oopgeslaan en notaboekie op my handsak gebalanseer. So skryf ek af. By die huis gaan probeer ek die resep uit. Wag in spanning vir die brood om uit die oond te kom. H’m, lyk nie sleg nie. Maar die eerste sny deur die kors weet ek al: dis nie wat ek soek nie. dit lyk soos die tuisgebakte brood van my kinderdae, die soort wat net lekker is omdat dit nog halfwarm uit die oond is.
Colleen Crawford Cousins my friend and collaborater also spoke about the book. Hester and Lies are old friends of hers, and right from the start she too saw Hester’s book. She advised me on cover design and book design. She saw that the book is about making bread, but it is also and perhaps more importantly about making a handmade life and Hester chose to write it in Afrikaans as an act of reclamation of her mother tongue. I wished Hester had read for much longer when she read us two tantalising paragraphs.
Niel Jonker, who helped Hester and Lies to build their wood fired oven came specially to the launch with his family. He also spoke about his involvement with the oven, becoming a baker of bread and of his friendship with Hester and Lies.
Oh and a charming little detail: Colleen and I stayed at the MacGregor Wine Farm Cottages – the entrance to which says “Ina Naude en man”. There has to be a story there.
Book details
Modjaji Books is proud to announce the publication of Hester se Brood by Hester van der Walt.
This gorgeous book will be out in the first week of December, if you pay now you will get an 18% discount on your signed copy – that is you will pay R155. The book will sell in stores for R190. The book is a wonderful exploration of a handmade life and the preoccupations of the author, Hester van der Walt, in particular her journeying into bread making and moving to and making her new home in McGregor. The book is beautifully designed by Natasha Mostert, cover lettering by Hannah Morris, and Hester’s partner, Lies Hoogendoorn’s delightful drawings enhance the text and give a visual sense of life in McGregor. Lies also did the painting which was used for the cover design.
More about the Book:
Hester se Brood is gesetel in ’n dorpie in die Klein Karoo, waar Hester van der Walt brood in ’n houtbakoond vir die plaaslike mark bak. Soos twee groot geeste van weleer, C. Louis Leipoldt en Martin Versveld, het sy ’n diepgewortelde, intuïtiewe aanvoeling vir die konneksie tussen siel en kos; veral kos wat met sorg, volgens tradisionele beginsels en metodes, voorberei word. Saam met gulhartige porsies sielskos, verskaf hierdie eerlike (en heerlike) plat-op-die-aarde boek ook resepte wat jou gaan wys hoe om klasieke Europese brode, soos ciabatta, focaccia, kitke en baguettes te bak, asook plaaslike gustelinge, soos outydse soetsuurdeegbrood.
’n Fyn sin vir humor, en ’n groot waardering vir die magiese spel tussen vuur en hout, graan en sout, water en gis en tyd – die basiese elemente wat nodig is om goeie brood te bak – maak hierdie boek net so onweerstaanbaar soos die reuk van brood, kraakvars uit die oond.
The publication of the book was made possible by a grant from the Hiemstra Trust.
Please feel free to pass this special offer on to friends and colleagues. The offer is only available until the 27th November 2009. Please email me to place an order and let me know how many copies you are ordering and your postal address.
Modjaji Books Banking details:
Modjaji Books CC
FNB * Adderley Street Branch * 201409
Cheque Account * Account Number 62148917646
Use your Surname as a reference when you make the payment online
