Reading with Nadia Davids. Come along!
Shortlisted for the Nadine Gordimer Award
I am very happy that my debut fiction book Stations was shortlisted for the 2017 Nadine Gordimer Award at the South African Literary Awards.
I'm disappointed that I did not win, but I would like to congratulate Roela Hattingh for winning with her collection Kamee, and I would like to thank my friend Mohale Mashigo for standing in for me at the ceremony.
Thanks to the Department of Arts & Culture and the wRite Associates for the honour.
Announcing: The First Law of Sadness
Connected by more than their exquisite prose, Nick Mulgrew’s new stories delve into a world of killer eagles, tattoo removal parlours, hardcore punk guitarists-cum-auditors, turtle sanctuaries, plane crashes, amateur pornographers and biltong-makers – a world concurrently too strange and too familiar for comfort.
A collection of startling imagination and sympathy – set primarily in South Africa’s least fashionable cities and suburbs – these stories maintain a precarious balance between rich comedy and despair throughout their explorations of grief, spectacle, sex, nostalgia, and the lives of animals, both human and not.
With audaciousness met by trademark spiritual undercurrents and poetic flourish, The First Law of Sadness is confirmation of Mulgrew’s status as one of South Africa’s best contemporary exponents of short fiction.
Out from David Philip Publishers in South Africa in September 2017. Includes a photo series by Michael Tymbios. Cover type by Alice Edy.