Crooked Seeds captures the national trauma and collective guilt that accompanied the post-apartheid period in South Africa.
By Helena Olori
Nigerian publishing house, Masobe Books, is gearing up for the release of a new novel, Crooked Seeds, by renowned South African author, Karen Jennings, following its Nigerian rights acquisition.
The highly anticipated title, revealed with a visually stunning new cover design, will hit bookstores in Nigeria on April 24th, 2024.
The book, set in a futuristic Cape Town, is a daring exploration of the post-apartheid era in South Africa as a woman, Deidre van Deventer, confronts her family’s intricate past. The book captures the national trauma and collective guilt that accompanied that period in South Africa.
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Crooked Seeds is Jennings’ fourth novel. It has been described as a “singularly powerful novel, in exquisitely spare prose, about the ways we become trapped in prisons of our own making”.
The Cape Town-based seasoned author has four fiction works, a memoir, and a poetry collection under her belt. Her debut novel, Finding Soutbek, was shortlisted for the inaugural edition of the Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2013, and her most recent work, An Island was on the longlist for the Booker Prize in 2021.
Jennings holds master’s degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in English Literature from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Readers in Nigeria can anticipate the arrival of Crooked Seeds in bookstores from April 24, 2024. The book is also expected to grace bookshelves in North America on April 16, 2024, published by Hogarth Press.