Greg Latter’s BLACK BUTTERFLIES wins best film at the Golden Calves

BLACK BUTTERFLIES, scripted by Greg Latter, took the main prize at the Dutch national film awards, the Golden Calves, on Friday night. The South African set drama won best film, as well as receiving the best actress award for Carice van Houten's performance as poet Ingrid Jonker (following on from her win at the Tribeca Film Festival), and the award for best editing.

BLACK BUTTERFLIES, directed by Paula van der Oest, is the story of Ingrid Jonker, the women hailed as the South African Sylvia Plath. Greg's script is set in 1960s Cape Town, as a young Jonker discovers her creative voice amid the stifling atmosphere of apartheid and the overbearing eye of her rigid father, a government censorship minister (played by Rutger Hauer). As tensions rise, Ingrid witnesses an unconscionable event that will determine the route of both her creative and personal life.

You can watch the trailer here.

Greg Latter is a prolific screenwriter whose films have won awards at film festivals throughout the world. His next project, NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON, is currently in pre-production and due out in 2013. He currently resides in Knysna, South Africa.

Praise for BLACK BUTTERFLIES:

One of Sound On Sight's Five Films to Watch from Tribeca Film Festival: 'As a woman governed by equal parts genius and mercurial gloom, Jonker could inspire passion but never, it seems, love-a sad truth critically conveyed by van Houten. Jonker's inner turmoil mirrored her country's upheaval, but van der Oest is never heavy-handed with her parallels of the poet and the South African maelstrom happening around her: The relationships in the film are a lens through which to view a cultural zeitgeist, but the people always have center stage, not the politics.'

One of indieWIRE's 'Ten Films iW is excited about at Tribeca.'

'Van Houten (Black Book) is marvellous to watch, a tough, passionate whirlwind of an actress who summons the steely verve of a Judy Davis. She gives real backbone to the familiar arc of the self-destructive artist pushing against the social constraints of her time (South Africa in the Apartheid clampdown of the 1960s) while engaging in turbulent relationships with difficult lovers and a repressive politico father who, in horrific irony, was South Africa's censorship chief.' -- GreenCine Daily

TJ & DOUBLE NEGATIVE by Ivan Vladislavic and David Goldblatt shortlisted for Lucie Award

Ivan Vladislavić and David Goldblatt's photography-fiction collaboration, TJ & DOUBLE NEGATIVE is on yet another prestigious shortlist, for the Lucie Photographic Awards. Their Italian publisher Contrasto, who originated the innovative photographic book and novel collector's edition TJ & DOUBLE NEGATIVE is one of five publishers shortlisted in the Book Publisher of the Year category for this book. The same book won the Kraszna-Krausz award in London earlier this year.  Random Umuzi published the dual edition in South Africa, followed by the solo novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE, a haunting literary novel about photography and memory, in its standalone volume form in May 2011. The book was beautifully designed by Cyn van Houten. Contrasto will publish the Italian edition next year, and French rights have been sold to Editions Zoe.

Ivan also has a beautiful book of essays, THE LOSS LIBRARY, coming out from Random Umuzi and Seagull Books, and Sylph Editions are bringing out a special edition of his story A LABOUR OF MOLES in their Cahiers Series.

The Lucie Awards, set up to honour the greatest achievements in photography, will be announced at the Rose Theatre in the Lincoln Centre on Monday 24 October.

BOOK PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR Nominees:
Yale University Art Gallery for Robert Adams: The Place We Live
Contrasto Books for TJ/Double Negative, by David Goldblatt and Ivan Vladislavic
21st Editions for Yamamoto Masao
Chris Boot, Ltd for Infidel, by Tim Hetherington
Prestel for Permanent Error by Pieter Hugo

Praise for Ivan Vladislavić

'One of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today.' -- André Brink

'Vladislavić is without doubt the most significant writer in South Africa today.' -- Focus on Africa

'Vladislavić is a rare, brilliant writer.' -- Sunday Times (SA)

'PORTRAIT WITH KEYS reminds me sometimes of Orhan Pamuk's ISTANBUL and sometimes of James Joyce's DUBLINERS, but it is really altogether one of a kind.' -- Jan Morris

'PORTRAIT WITH KEYS is surely one of the most ingenious love letters - full of violence, fear, humour and cunning - ever addressed to a city. If Italo Calvino had grown up in Jo'burg and experienced both apartheid and its aftermath this is the kind of book he would have been proud to have written.' --Geoff Dyer

For more information on David Goldblatt click here:

http://www.davidgoldblatt.com/

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/photography/photographer.php?photographerid=ph026&row=0

David Goldblatt has been photographing and documenting South African society for over 50 years. Born in Randfontein in 1930 to parents who came to South Africa to escape the persecution of Lithuanian Jews in 1890, he was simultaneously part of privileged white society and a victim of religious persecution and alienation. Motivated by his contradictory position in South African society, Goldblatt began photographing this society, and in 1963 decided to devote all of his time to photography.

He was awarded the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (2009), for his project "TJ". The award is intended for a photographer of exceptional ability who has an established career and has completed a significant body of work.

Sheila O’Flanagan nominated for the publicly-voted Irish Book Awards.

ALL FOR YOU by Sheila O'Flanagan has been nominated for the Eason's Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year, which is one of the nine categories in the Irish Book Awards and one in which the public vote plays a large part. The winner is decided from a combination of the public's and the Irish Literary Academy's votes. To cast your vote please click here.

This category celebrates Irish popular fiction, and previous winners include Marian Keyes and Ross O'Carroll-Kelly. The other nominees are Emma Hannigan, Sinead Moriarty, Cecilia Ahern, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly and Patricia Scanlan. The winner will be announced at the Awards Dinner on 17 November.

ALL FOR YOU went straight to No 1 in the Irish Bestseller lists its first week on sale and Sheila's previous book STAND BY ME was also a chart-topper in the paperback bestsellers chart this year.

Praise for ALL FOR YOU:

'O'Flanagan has unleashed a fire-breathing specimen straight out of the age of Germaine Greer in... ALL FOR YOU... Her characters evolve convincingly and you begin to understand why they do the things they do... you start to realise that ALL FOR YOU is actually a nuanced study of modern woman and the pressures they face in their lives, from the "handicap of beauty" to balancing a career with the desire to find a partner... O'Flanagan's latest offering deserves its place on the bestseller list - it entertains, surprises and provokes.' -- The Independent, Ireland

GHOST LIGHT shortlisted for Prix Femina Etranger

GHOST LIGHT by Joseph O'Connor, released as MUSE in France, is shortlisted for the Prix Femina Étranger in France. This prestigious award was established in 1904 by twenty-two writers and the winner is chosen by an exclusively female jury. Other authors shortlisted include Eleanor Catton, Francisco Goldman and David Grossman. REDEMPTION FALLS was also nominated for this award in 2007. The winner for this year's prize will be announced on  21 October, and the awards ceremony will take place on 7 November.

GHOST LIGHT, is published by Phébus in France and Harvill Secker in the UK and by twelve other publishers around the world. Joseph O'Connor has received wide acclaim for this novel both overseas and in the UK.

Praise for Joseph O'Connor:

'One of the best novelists of the Irish 'nouvelle vague'.'-- Le Quotidien Jurassien

'… a magnificent book… A brilliant, gentle and terribly poignant novel.' -- Le Temps

Peter James won the People’s Bestseller Dagger at the ITV Crime Awards!

Peter James won the People's Bestseller Dagger at the ITV3 Crime Awards for DEAD MAN'S GRIP. Voted for by the public, Peter beat contestants including Lee Child and Mark Billingham.  Peter told The Guardian: "This is a wonderful award that strikes at the very heart of what good books are all about:  enthralling readers with gripping, page-turning fiction - and decided not by an elite committee but by the very people who read and loved them - the general public," he said. "I don't think there can be a higher accolade for any author."

The other winners were SJ Watson's BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP for the John Creasey New Blood Dagger, Tom Franklin's CROOKED LETTER for the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year and Steve Hamilton's THE LOCK ARTIST for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller. Only Peter James though promised all his fans fish & chips at the Brighton Pier if he won!

The ceremony took place on Friday 7 October and Peter duly bought his fans a fish & chip lunch on Brighton Pier the next day!

Praise for DEAD MAN'S GRIP:

'Authenticity, coupled with the ingenuity of his plotting, drives the tale at a pace that could fuse speed cameras on the M1.' -- David Connett, The Sunday Express

'James is well established at the very top of the British crime tree and this atmospheric, pacy and truly gripping novel will most certainly help to keep him there.' -- The Bookseller