Notes From the Launch of Home Away (Plus: Photos and Videos)

by Amanda on Apr 16th, 2010

Home Away – the world in one day, in a book; a collection of writing on hours and cities edited by Louis Greenberg – was launched at the Book Lounge last night to the expected standing-room-only crowd. (24 contributors – you knew it would be a big launch!) Book Lounge owner Mervyn Sloman called the collection “a gift to book shops and booksellers” and welcomed the Johannesburg-based Greenberg to his first Book Lounge experience – which, as he affirmed, he thoroughly enjoyed.

Greenberg described Home Away‘s format: 24 South African writers – exiles, immigrants, inziles – write about 24 cities at alloted hours, making up a single calendar day (and a read that will last a lifetime). The book takes on the wider theme of travel – see the suitcase on the stunning cover – and questions to what extent we ever feel at home.

While the book’s cover makes use of the suitcase, so do several of the stories: Colleen Higgs‘ “The Warm Arms of Kampala” begins with lost luggage, and read far enough into Richard de Nooy‘s “Stowaway” and you will discover that it is, in fact, narrated by a suitcase.

Greenberg’s aim for the collection was to “shatter perceptions” about South Africans, where white is white, black is black, and ideas about heritage extend only so far. Eight of the writers in the collection were present to read from their stories – including Greenberg, who was pressed by Lauren Beukes to read “Last Chance at the End of the World”, in what she called “an ambush reading”.

The proceeds from Home Away go to the Adonis Musati Project in the Western Cape and Kids’ Haven in Gauteng. Get your copy now!

Here follow video clips and photos from the launch:

Videos

Sally Partridge: Triolet, Mauritius (1 AM) “The Expedition”