Open Book Festival

Cynthia Jele

Patrick Gale

The festival was an admirable achievement. I dare say it is already beginning to dawn on you both, as the full hammerblow of exhaustion hits, that the onus is now on you to get ready to do it all over again. Repeatedly and forever! I have a new novel out next year and will be sure to talk Open Book up to every (good!) author I meet on the road so that they in turn put pressure on their publishers to send them down your way.

Damon Galgut

Thank you truly and deeply, for what you made happen over the last few days. I can say without stint or reservation that I had a glimpse of a different sort of Cape Town, a kind of literary heaven, where I had one of the best times I can remember in the nearly thirty years I’ve lived here…I know a lot of other people feel the same way. It was really wonderful.

Paul Harding

I just wanted to drop a line back to you about how absolutely thrilling and wonderful and exhilarating it was to have the privilege of participating in the first Open Book Festival.

John Crace

I’ve been meaning to write to say what a great time I had and what a wonderful job you both had done organising such a big festival. Certainly the other writers I spoke to had been equally impressed and had also had a fab time in the process…I’ve also been singing your praises to other writers at Charleston and Wigtown Festival (the reason I had to leave early on Thursday) so I don’t think you will find it hard to recruit for next year. Apart from being a fab place to visit, it was tremendous to meet readers I wouldn’t normally get to see and to build relationships.

Jane Bussmann

Open Book 2011 was just terrific. Cape Town audiences and the book shop and Fugard crowd are very warm, smart, chatty, occasionally inebriated on Leopard’s Leap cabernet sauvignon. They make you feel the years of scribbling are worth it.

Steven Amsterdam

Open Book Cape Town is the friendliest and most fertile of festivals. The organisers run it with commitment to engaging the community that transcends the navel-gazing that can happen at these events. Cape Town itself is a key player, offering a magnificent and complex backdrop for the entire schedule. Frankie and Mervyn should be commended and encouraged and should definitely keep going.

Dawn Promislow

Open Book offered a variety of intriguing and beautiful venues, and writers from all corners of the globe, speaking on subjects of many kinds, but I appreciated above all that through Open Book, the Matthew Goniwe High School library in Khayelitsha is now stocked with books, for school students now, and in future years to come. This reaching across from the literary community, to a less privileged community, is something I have seldom seen, but it is surely essential to the building of a better world. Thank you Open Book for leading the way with this!

Michiel Heyns

I guess you don’t need me to tell you that Open Book was a wholly delightful experience. Everybody I spoke to shared that view, and will no doubt have said so to you. But yes, it was wonderful…there was a freshness of approach both in the formal sessions and the informal mingling afterward, with none of the authorial backbiting that literary events are notorious for.  And of course, it was good to know that one was contributing, however modestly, to establishing a library and creating a literate readership. Congratulations on the evident success of the Matthew Goniwe project.

Terence McNamee

Open Book dazzled in its debut year – delightful venues, exceptionally well-organised and a feast of exhilarating talks and readings.   Set against the unbeatable backdrop of Table Mountain, Open Book is sure to become a much-loved fixture on the international literary calendar.