The Story Explorer

With DuduBloom More and Kamanee Govender, Johannesburg.

This episode is for people in Johannesburg who care about art, about women's safety, and about what it means to live in a city where violence against women is a daily reality. Host Christi shares why she is bringing together visual artist DuduBloom More and author Kamanee Govender at Candice Berman Gallery on 3 December, and why she believes artists hold something the rest of us need right now.

Christi revisits a conversation she had with DuduBloom More for her project The Remains of a Conversation, centred on the film Where the…

Frankie Murrey, coordinator of Cape Town's Open Book Festival

This episode is for readers, book club members, and curious minds who want to understand what to expect at the Cape Town Open Book Festival, and which authors are worth seeking out. Frankie Murrey, festival coordinator and writer, makes the case for ‘showing up, being in the room, adding your voice, and understanding something differently’.

Host Christi Sa opens by discussing Frankie’s own unusual book: A Collection of Gaps, a box of short stories, fragments, artefacts, and stickers that explores what home means in a world of…

Debut novelist Kamanee Govender joins host Christi Sa to talk about Stern Gods, her clear-eyed literary coming-of-age story set in an Indian South African neighbourhood during the 1986 State of Emergency. This episode is essential listening for all South African citizens and especially school principals, youth organisation leaders, book clubs, and NGOs working with young people in South Africa who want to address how abuse, oppression, and silence shape children's lives.

The main character of Stern Gods is Kaathi, who is twelve years old. She lives in Bombayville during apartheid, surrounded…

On reading lenses, epistolary fiction, and finding your elderly heroine.

This episode is for book lovers, book club readers, and anyone who has ever felt frustrated saying 'I loved it' or 'I hated it' and wished they had better words. It gives you new tools, new vocabulary, and a new way of paying attention the next time you pick up a book. It is for readers who sense that the real pleasure and meaning of a book lives somewhere between the page and their own body, and who want language to explore that territory with others.

Host Christi Sa opens with a scene from a book-filled dike house…

In this episode of The Story Explorer, I’m reading you a letter I wrote to a friend.

My friend often works remotely in different parts of Africa, and last year she recommended that I read The Old Drift by the Zambian-born writer Namwali Serpell. This novel won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2020. This is a true epic: more than five hundred pages long. And after finishing it, I wanted nothing more than to sit down with my friend and talk about it. But she was deep in remote field research, far away and difficult to reach.
So instead, I wrote her a letter.
In that letter, I poured out my…

In this episode, I take you with me into my reading experience of Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I share the insights that slowly unfolded as I read, and especially what shifted for me when I returned to a poem by the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov.

While discussing the book at book club, I still felt like I wasn’t really getting it. I couldn’t quite grasp what was going on beneath the surface. So I started speaking my thoughts out loud: my doubts, my resistance, the questions that wouldn’t settle. And somewhere in that trail of thought, something shifted. It clicked. I suddenly…

Words matter.

In this episode, I share two insights I gained while reading Jessica McCabe's book 'How to ADHD'. This is a self-help book, and it's the first time I'm talking about a book from this category on the podcast. I include it in my story-exploring journey because self-help books are reflections of people's journeys; they are stories from individuals, and we can learn from them.

Reading this book completely shifted my understanding of how an ADHD brain works, totally different from what I imagined. I give examples of how I picture an ADHD brain, and even use my own experience as a…

In this episode, I have a conversation with Professor Siphiwo Mahala
about literature. With my podcast I aim to explore literary spaces in a broad sense. That means not only speaking to writers or readers, but also to the people who shape how literature is recognised and valued.

Professor Siphiwo Mahala is the Chair of the Sunday Times Literary Awards and an associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg. He is also an acclaimed writer in his own right.

We talk about how the judging and selection process works. I explore a question that has been on my…

This episode takes you, the listener, into a question based book discussion about the book So Long See You Tomorrow, by American author William Maxwell.

The book is now available in a Vintage Classic, published by Penguin Random House UK. Originally published in 1980, it won the American Book Award and in 1995, William Maxwell received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the short story.

I was joined in the studio on a Saturday morning by three loyal members of the public book club I host at 44 Stanley, at Saint-Germain: Denise Alexander, Daniel Greeff, and Odette Graskie. Instead of…

An interview with Gavin Evans author of Son of a Preacher Man.

In this episode, I talk with award winning London-based South African writer Gavin Evans, author of Son of Preacher Man.

While preparing for my book club discussion on James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, I noticed the book Son of a Preacher Man lying in one of the piles on my book table. Both books tell the story of a preacher's son; one in fiction, the other in a memoir. That connection immediately sparked the idea to reach out to Gavin Evans.

In this conversation, you'll hear me ask questions that emerged from that…

Listen and be captivated by her exquisite brief stories.

In this episode you can join me on a journey to discover Lydia Davis, winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize- now known as the International Booker Prize. She is renowned for her exceptionally brief stories. Some are just one sentence long, but don’t let their brevity fool you. Each story can make you pause, contemplate and bring you delight in unexpected ways.

Rather than just interpreting her work or telling you why I think her books are worth reading, I’ll be sharing four of Lydia Davis’ short stories with you: stories…

Realisations evoked by Ashraf Kagee's 'Song of the Slave Girl'.

In this episode from The Story Explorer podcast, I take you on a personal journey from growing up in the Netherlands to discovering new perspectives here in South Africa.

Before we start this exploration, a quick spoiler alert, I’ll be sharing key elements from the novel that inspired this episode. Still, I believe I do this in a way that leaves room for your own discoveries.

The focus of this episode is ‘Song of the Slave Girl’ by South African writer, psychologist, and academic Ashraf Kagee. He lives in Cape Town and is…

About Red Sorghum by Nobel prize winner Mo Yan.

In this episode you'll hear about my preparations for a book club discussion on Red Sorghum by Chinese author Mo Yan at Saint-Germain, 44Stanley in Johannesburg. Mo Yan is the only citizen to date awarded the Nobel prize in Literature, which he received in 2012.

After announcing the book to our group, a loyal member, an award winning teacher, Natalie Alexander, approached me and told me her mother had grown up in China.

This sparked the idea to prepare for book club together, as Natalie could offer insights into Chinese customs and culture…

in conversation with award winning journalist Mr. Hamilton Wende.

In this episode, I have a captivating conversation with award-winning journalist, war correspondent, television producer, and children’s book author Mr. Hamilton Wende.

With this podcast, I aim to continue having one-on-one conversations about books. When I approached Mr. Wende, he immediately said yes and suggested we discuss the Brontë sisters: a subject he finds deeply fascinating.

Mr. Wende proposed we focus on three major Brontë novels, along with the renowned biography by Juliet Barker. Although Jane Eyre by…

What can go wrong, and how it might go right.

In this episode, I share how I prepare for the bookclub evening at Saint-Germain; a popular gathering spot in 44 Stanley, Johannesburg. The evening will centre around Heaven, a novel written in 2009 by Japanese author Mieko Kawakami.

Kawakami won the Murasaki Shikibu prize for this book in Japan, and the English translation by Sam Bet and David Boyd was shortlisted for the International Booker prize in 2022. A bookseller from Exclusive Books in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, had recommended this book to me. The book is about teenagers who are being…

About how and why to read beach reads.

In this episode, I share my reading experience and interpretation method with two books I read during the South African long summer break. The two books I read and discuss here are 'The lack of Light' by Georgian writer Nino Haratischwili and 'There are Rivers in the Sky' by Turkish-British writer Elif Shafak. I explain to you why 'The lack of Light' resonated with me despite the story being set in a horrible war. I share with you how I - after finishing this book - while on holiday in The Western Cape end up in a small mall in Noordhoek and find this…

How to read Jane Eyre in Africa.

In this episode I talk about my experience when I discussed my favourite book, Jane Eyre, with a group of teenagers in Hillbrow at the Windybrow Arts Centre in Johannesburg.

I share with you what I discover about this book during this journey. Jane Eyre not only is a white classic which in itself makes it a complicated choice, yet it also, as I learn along the way, has a racist element in it that can not be excused. At the Windybrow Arts Centre I used the children's version from Tanya Landman, first published in 2020 by Barrington Stoke, an imprint by…

Why making stories matters.

In this episode I share with you four stories I wrote myself. I used to be 'only' a reader, yet I started to notice the question in my body: 'Where is my creative output?'. Inspired by Brenee Brown and the theory she shares in her book 'Rising Strong', about the importance of stories and the possibility to create connection between people via story making, I started to write down my own stories.

The first story I share is about a heavy topic. I grew up with a parent that struggled with depression; so I got to know this 'thing' up close. Depression comes in many…

In this episode, I have a conversation with South African writer Barbara Adair about the book Crooked Seeds from Karen Jennings. This book is published by Karavan Press in 2024.

I share with you how I know Barbara and how we decided we were going to have a conversation about this book.

Karen Jennings was long listed for the Booker Prize in 2021 for her book An Island. Barbara shares with us the story of how she knows about this writer and why she wanted to have a conversation with me about this story.

Crooked Seeds is about a woman who is stuck, and as I just had read Prophet Song by Paul…

A challenging read that proved to be fun!

In this episode, I share with you what I discussed with a few people who joined the book club evening @Saint Germain, 44 Stanley, Johannesburg on the 9th of May, 2024. We read If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, published in 1979 by Italo Calvino. I thought it would be a challenging read, but I actually found myself having so much fun with the book. I am a fan of Roland Barthes essay 'The death of the author" and while I read this book I thought this is either a play, or a critique, or a tribute to Roland Barthes.

Via questions and a categorisation…

We are told "it takes two to be a slave".

I will share with you what the book club evening was like in a little cafe in Johannesburg, early 2024. On this specific evening I discussed the book Homegoing, written by Yaa Gyasi in 2016. This book is her debut. She won National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for Best First book with Homegoing. She was only 26 when she won this prize. I prepared questions to discuss with people who also had read the book. My intention with this book club is to hear what other people have to say in answer to questions I have with regards to the book. This…

Hello listener, welcome to my podcast series: The Story explorer.

I am a reader who has the need to talk with others about what I’ve read. I have started and joined many book clubs. I now run one in a little café in Johannesburg. You are all welcome to join. But because time is sparse for many of us and Johannesburg is not within travelling distance for many readers I am taking up the challenge to talk about books in a podcast. I believe a story always is embedded in something else. This will be the starting point of this podcast journey. I want to look at what is around the story; what is…