Bücher veröffentlicht von Dryad Press

In Earth-Circuit, Iyra E M Maharaj transports us to a dreamscape where surreal imagination creates its own force field, giving rise to an abundant range of ideas, experiences and images that prompt a new view on familiar and naturalised norms. Harnessing a dervish-type figure in the background, the poet shapes, crafts and pushes the boundaries of expectation beyond received ideas of God and gender. These strangely vital encounters of dream life and reconsidered waking come to life, creating a powerful mythology of woman as energy in an embrace of an elemental witchy power.The landscapes of this poet's vision welcome the mystery that resides in ancient places, and equally, in those where we have not yet lived. Hers are surprising, concrete, carved words - stately sounds, emotion bushing behind elegance; all serve as reminders of what you never knew you knew. - Phillippa Yaa de VilliersIyra E M Maharaj holds a doctorate in paleobiology from the University of Cape Town. She was born and raised in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and studied biological sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal before moving to Cape Town for postgraduate research. As a matriculant, she was the recipient of the Francis & Jessica Brett-Young Memorial Prize in 2012. She currently teaches Biology at a high school in Cape Town. Alongside her teaching commitments, she is also a writer at KREST Publishers, working on a collaborative fiction novel. earth-circuit is her debut poetry collection.

For P. R. Anderson, poetry is "language equipping us as itself at the frontier of the unspeakable". Night Transit is such a volume, confronting the dark before and after life. There are poems of travel that take on an existential dimension and also poems of mythopoeic origin, memoirs of South Africa in the 1980s and after, and poems of witness and advocacy in the current ecocide. Whether it is love or death that axiomatically stirs up the poetry, Anderson sees into the cloudy transit with clear and original eyes. These poems range from a consideration of the fourth war of resistance at what is now Makhanda to the care of insects as populations collapse across the planet. Anderson considers the project of poetry, and recalls the euphoria of transit and relocation in an epoch of anguish, yearning and crisis.

Like a modern Orpheus, Chris Mann explores the underworld of the past and returns with peculiarly African poetry, based on the classics that deepens our understanding of the present. In this collection, youthful Narcissus gazes into a mobile phone, wandering Odysseus sails the seas of the Internet, and picknickers beside a river's pool in South Africa encounter the shades. The satirical poets of ancient Rome mock a strangely familiar hunger for sex and power among politicians, dispossessed Britons revolt against the empire, Vandals ruthlessly plunder wealth and land, and tech-savvy Phoenicians colonise the coast of a pastoral Africa. Rising seas engulf the lost city of Atlantis, and a terrible plague devastates the Athens of Socrates, Pericles, and the Parthenon. Palimpsests speaks to the interplay of different cultures and how the past is interwoven in the fabric of the present. It is a fresh, new offering enabling lovers of the classics to experience this world in a unique, modern and African way.

Meen Kaul is riding high in her position as director of BeheraHouse, a safe haven in India for women who have survived domesticviolence. But when the stock market crashes, Meena loses her fundingfor a new campus. Seeing an opportunity to win women''s votes beforea national election, the Hindu Democratic Party (HDP) steps in with amultimillion-dollar grant.Meena''s worst fears come to pass as the nationalist Hindu party winsthe election and begins to chip away at a hundred years of progress onwomen''s rights. Meanwhile, Simon Bliss, America''s foremost "green"architect, arrives to design the flagship building of the new campus.Trapped in a stalled marriage, Simon falls for the bright and alluringMeena and is quickly sucked into the perilous world of Indian politics.In his attempt to loosen the HDP''s grip on Meena and win her affection,Simon spars with reactionary politicians, crooked priests, andsleazy businessmen who will stop at nothing to protect their interests.In the process, Simon comes face to face with disturbing truths about hisown past, and Meena finds herself trapped in a way she could have neverexpected.Langer has written an emotionally charged novel complete with forbiddenlove, murder, and corporate greed-all against the backdrop ofan ancient country trying to find its identity in a fast-changing world.