Can Black Man Talk About Love
Johannesburg, Gauteng, April 27th 2023
Maakomele R Manaka affectionately known as ‘MAK’, a renowned South African Poet, is launching his own publishing house and his online store, after finally reclaimed all his previously published works. Manaka Publications will officially be launched in Johannesburg on the 27h April 2023.
The day will also double up as a media launch and launch pad for his current project under Manaka Publications, called, Translating the Protea. Manaka’s third literary delivery titled Flowers of a Broken Smile published 2016 has been translated into three different South African languages, Sepedi, Afrikaans and Xhosa. Translating the Protea will tour to the three Provinces, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and North West, visiting high schools and Universities respectively.
Nape Motana, Sepedi translator is a member of Medupe Writers’ Association, PEN, African Writers’ Association and Congress of South African Writers, and a poet published in inter alia, Staffrider, New Classic and The Return of the Amasi Bird.
Ayanda Billie the Xhosa translator is a writer/poet – born in the township of KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage Kariega, where he still lives and is the co-founder of Mandela Bay Book Fair.
Pieter Odendaal the Afrikaans translator is a South African poet, playwright, translator and editor. He was the director of InZync Poetry from 2015-2019, a poetry organization based in the English Studies Department at Stellenbosch University and he currently teaches Creative Writing at North-West University in Potchefstroom.
“Flowers of a Broken Smile, Maakomele Manaka’s third literary offering, is an extended riff of feminine aspects of love and life” said Lebo Mashile in the forward of the book. “Translating the Protea is a project that allows accessibility of the literature in our home languages, allowing us to converse better.” Said Maakomele Manaka.
About the Publisher:
Maakomele R. Manaka is a Soweto born poet with a strong artistic heritage. South African icon Don Mattera said “If genius can be genetically connected and if it flows from generation to generation, then Mak Manaka is the epitome of it. He comes from a dynasty of talented, creative and gifted people Nomsa and Matsemela”.
He has published four collections of poetry If Only (self-published, 2003. Edited by Don Mattera), In Time (Geko,2009. Edited by Andrew Miller) Flowers of A Broken Smile (InkSword 2016) and Oncoming Traffic (Botsotso 2018. Ed. by Allan Horwitz).
ENDS
For more information contact: Mpume Imani Kotane
071 577 9436