The Story Explorer

In this episode, I have a conversation with South African writer Barbara Adair about the book Crooked Seeds from Karen Jennings. This book is published by Karavan Press in 2024. I share with you how I know Barbara and how we decided we were going to have a conversation about this book. Karen Jennings was long listed for the Booker Prize in 2021 for her book An Island. Barbara shares with us the story of how she knows about this writer and why she wanted to have a conversation with me about this story. Crooked Seeds is about a woman who is stuck, and as I just had read Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (he won the Booker Prize in 2023 with this book), I hesitated to talk about another book that has a main character who is stuck. And yes, this book is hard to read if you look at the story and characters as if they are real people. Yet in our conversation, Barbara explains a different way of reading this story which helped me understand the story in another way. I am from the Netherlands and I have sometimes specific ways of reading, looking at books and stories, and in this conversation I mention a few of those. For example, my starting point is often to look at the story from the perspective I learned from a Dutch author I read many years ago. This author is Jos VandeLoo. I translated and shared his view on literature as follows: "Literature must make people think. The people have to become participants of the story, they have to take a side, make a judgement call. They have to do something!" Visit Barbara Adair's website · A Q&A with Karen Jennings who was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2021 · ChristiSa.com · Connect with Christi on LinkedIn · Follow Christi Sa on Instagram · Follow Saint Germain on Instagram

A challenging read that proved to be fun! In this episode, I share with you what I discussed with a few people who joined the book club evening @Saint Germain, 44 Stanley, Johannesburg on the 9th of May, 2024. We read If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, published in 1979 by Italo Calvino. I thought it would be a challenging read, but I actually found myself having so much fun with the book. I am a fan of Roland Barthes essay 'The death of the author" and while I read this book I thought this is either a play, or a critique, or a tribute to Roland Barthes. Via questions and a categorisation assignment we talk about this book. I guide the participants through a word play activity to find 'a' meaning, my meaning, of this book. I share a passage from the book that I believe 'proofs' this play. We kept talking about the book, even when we lost all lights and our host Nikki brought us candles, so we can continue despite a huge power outage. In the dark we talk about reading aloud to someone else. I have just read in the book Papyrus by Vallejo that when the alphabet was invented, we read aloud for many, many years before someone invented silent reading. Nowadays podcasts and audiobooks have become a normal go to for many people. I wonder, has the reader died and has the listener been reborn? Everyone in the small group acknowledges that they rather read a book because it gives the possibility to underline sentences or passages, yet, we also wonder are we becoming lonely travellers? I end the conversation with presenting a novel in German: Der Vorleser. This book was translated in many languages, and in English it is called The Reader. The famous movie with Kate Winslet and David Kross is well known. We talk about the difference in meaning between the reader and der Vorleser. We were with only four, yet we felt inspired and heard by each other, even in the dark. This edition is published in Vintage Classics by Penguin Random House · Papyrus by I Vallejo is published by Penguin Random House · Roland Barthes' essay 'The Death of the Author' · der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink · · ChristiSa.com · Connect with Christi on LinkedIn · Follow Christi Sa on Instagram · Follow Saint Germain on Instagram

Hello listener, welcome to my podcast series: The Story explorer. I am a reader who has the need to talk with others about what I’ve read. I have started and joined many book clubs. I now run one in a little café in Johannesburg. You are all welcome to join. But because time is sparse for many of us and Johannesburg is not within travelling distance for many readers I am taking up the challenge to talk about books in a podcast. I believe a story always is embedded in something else. This will be the starting point of this podcast journey. I want to look at what is around the story; what is the location? Who are the characters? What is it that happens in the story? What does it do within me, the reader? What do I think the author wants to say? What does this story make me think about? These are questions I want to explore with books that I think are important and we all should read and talk about. ChristiSa.com · Connect with Christi on LinkedIn · Follow Christi Sa on Instagram · Follow Saint Germain on Instagram

We are told "it takes two to be a slave". I will share with you what the book club evening was like in a little cafe in Johannesburg, early 2024. On this specific evening I discussed the book Homegoing, written by Yaa Gyasi in 2016. This book is her debut. She won National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for Best First book with Homegoing. She was only 26 when she won this prize. I prepared questions to discuss with people who also had read the book. My intention with this book club is to hear what other people have to say in answer to questions I have with regards to the book. This episode is about the main theme of this book which is the effects of slavery on the lives of many African people. The outlook of this book brought me to a history of slavery: Born in Blackness by Howard W. French, Black American artist Kara Walker and a song titled come home, come home - bra fie by Fuse ODG. The group consisted of mainly white people, but was at last joined by an African American man, who joined the conversation with meaningful words. ChristiSa.com · Connect with Christi on LinkedIn · Follow Christi Sa on Instagram · Follow Saint Germain on Instagram