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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.”
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.’
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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.
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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!)
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