As the suicide crisis roars on in South Africa following the deaths of prominent celebrities like rapper Riky Rick and veteran actor Patrick Shai earlier this year, the 25th Time of the Writer Festival has chosen to highlight the issue.
Critical discussions around mental health and suicide will be held by accomplished radio journalist Michelle Constant and will unravel a deeper understanding of suicide and mental health by those who have lost loved ones or been affected by its consequences.
Set to take place online for the third consecutive year, the festival will run from March 14 to 21.
It can be viewed on Facebook or YouTube.
During proceedings, Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning’s book “Waterboy: Making Sense of My Son’s Suicide” will set the tone for discussions.
Horning and her husband Chris lost their son to suicide. In the book Horning pieces together the puzzle of his death. She writes with a visceral intensity of loss and grief, but also of the joys of celebrating her son's life.
Waterboy will touch anyone who has directly or indirectly experienced this ultimate heartbreak. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.
Alicia Sewdas Ramdharee’s “Orphaned by Suicide” is a moving account of being orphaned at age 12, and will also be a part of the festival this year.
In her heart-wrenching memoir, she recounts the horrific event that would see her life thrown into complete chaos and confusion. While the story of her family's murder-suicide made national news headlines, she was shuttled from home to home, with no place to belong.
Often being blamed for her family's demise she struggled to find solace as feelings of abandonment and disgrace threatened her physical and mental wellbeing.
Her book chronicles her journey as an orphan and her continuous triumph over the shame of suicide.
In her singular lyrical prose, “Broken Porcelain”, Relebone Rirhandzu eAfrika covers topics such as social media’s role in how we view depression, generational trauma, what self-care really is, taking anti-depressant medication, and finding love when you are mentally ill.
She writes with poignant honesty about the darkness of her mental illness and breaks down what mental illness is (and is not).
She is also the programme coordinator of the mental health podcast “The Nine Lives of Depression Survivors”.
The panel includes filmmaker Gillian Schutte, whose son committed suicide. After an altercation with a friend, spiralled into a dark hole of self-loathing and despair throughout the night, leading to him ending his life.
Other professions on the panel include Flora Veit-Wild, an Emerita Professor of African literatures at Humboldt University, Berlin.
Her publications include studies of body, madness, sexuality and gender in Anglophone and Francophone African writing and code-switching and linguistic innovation in Shona literature.
Her first book-length literary work is her memoir They Called You Dambudzo (2021).
This year the festival will honour Chief Albert Luthuli’s debut book “Let My People Go” which celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Other notable writers from South Africa and around the globe have been assembled for the festival by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.