Arja Salafranca in conversation with Rachel Zadok at Love Books, April 2013

Arja Salafranca in conversation with Rachel Zadok for the launch of her second novel Sister-Sister at Love Books, Melville, Johannesburg April 2013

Sleeper’s Awake

From the moment we glimpse the scar across the face of John Wraith (Lionel Newton), the stitches bristling like ferocious insects, we’re pulled into the drama of Sleeper’s Wake.

Based on the 2009 debut novel by local author Alistair Morgan, directed by Barry Berk, I’m happy to say the film stays largely true to the events of that fiction. The read was harrowing, slowly building up to an astonishing climax, and the film provides the visual background and completes the experience....Read more here

Rowing on the river Thames

The sun, different here,

piercing, yet diffused by northern slants.

The boat glides,

the cousins talk across the years.

They try to catch up decades in the slow glide

across water, life, love,

I’d like to say there is no catching up.

But I don’t. Can’t think it.

Can only try to bridge it,

explain, expound, talk through the details.

Like: what was school like?

Or: how was it growing up with a single mother,

and, importantly, where are you going?

Our eyes are hidden behind dark glasses.

We cannot see the flickers of fear, hesitancy.

It suits us both.

Rowing is hard work.

She takes off her light jacket,

the sun dips and bounces off her muscles.

They bulge, as a man’s might,

but with a more feminine grace and fluidity.

We row, the boat glides,

at the bridge we turn around.

She’s looking at me.

Far off, on the bank of the river,

weekenders make believe summer’s here.

That’s still in the future.

There’s a small line of sweat starting to

stain her top.

Did you choose deliberately?

Her breasts are bolstered by a WonderBra.

Does she know? Can she see my eyes?

Is my nonchalance practiced enough?  

For months I will wonder at this moment,

I will write about it,

explore it in therapy,

try to excacate its depths.

And always, I will come up empty-handed.

Poor for my lack,

and made poorer still for my fear. 

First published here

Arja Salafranca reading at the Melville Poetry Festival, October 2012

Home away from home

Cape Town - There are times when you feel like you’ve stepped out of your own world and into some alternative reality. A reality you could quite happily inhabit, if only the bank balance would follow suit. It helps that you’ve flown so many kilometres from the Big Smoke where you make your living, and you’re looking out at the view from your presidential suite.

The Sea Point Promenade is just beyond your window and the Atlantic Ocean splashing against the sea wall....Read more here

First cut is the deepest

There are many firsts beyond the obvious. The first time he comes bounding through your front window wearing a leather jacket at the start of winter, a jacket that you will remember through the years, the feel of it, and what it all meant. The first time you stay up till three, four in the morning, talking, and then more...Read more here

At the launch of donga, De La Creme, Melville, Johannesburg, August 7, 2012

With Frank Meintjies

Reading from donga

Photos: Michelle McGrane

An urban fantasy

I’m sitting in what feels like a bachelor pad on the 16th floor of the Pepperclub Hotel & Spa. I’ve just been kindly escorted to my hotel – a long story that includes not taking proper directions or noting names of streets. So, at the garage, playing damsel in distress I’m asking where to go and looking suitably confused, when a man eating a pie, filling up with petrol, says it’s not far, and personally escorts me there....Read more here

Out in Africa 2012: a review

With the second leg of the Out in Africa festival now showing, the highlight for me was the headline act, Cloudburst. This stars big names Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as two women who have been together for 31 years, co-habiting Dot’s home somewhere near the US/ Canadian border.

When the blind Dot (Fricker) falls out of bed and sprains her bottom, it’s apparently the beginning of the end of their life together. Her granddaughter Molly (Kristin Booth) sets in motion a plan to commit Dot to a frail-care facility, convinced that the 80-year-old Stella (Dukakis) can no longer care for her “special friend”...Read more here