When I set out to build Paperight, I imagined having best-selling, new South African fiction and non-fiction in our library, so that South Africans everywhere could get their hands on it.
Even though it took several years to get there, I’m ecstatic that we’ve just released over 200 books from leading publisher Random House Struik, including showstoppers like The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human, and Of Cops and Robbers by Mike Nicol. There’s loads more, have a look here.
As I write this, I’m sitting at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, a highlight of the South African literary year. An underlying – and often openly expressed – anxiety at the festival is our industry’s dependence on perhaps two million wealthy book buyers, who buy their books from glitzy stores in suburban malls. By working with Paperight, the team at Random House Struik have taken an important step towards real change. We sincerely hope others will follow in their footsteps.