'It’s a festival of conversation and space for gathering' — Open Book Festival coordinator Frankie Murrey

It’s day one of the annual Open Book Festival!

Writers, journalists, publishers, public figures, readers, listeners and artists are gathering at the HCC: Homecoming Centre for - as the festival’s tagline rightly reads - three days of conversations that matter. 

Held in early September each year, this year’s festival is running from today until Sunday the 8th. 

The event is organised by activist writer Dela Gwala, festival coordinator and short story writer Frankie Murrey and Mervyn Sloman, owner of the iconic Book Lounge in Cape Town. Murrey speaks to us from the Homecoming Centre’s boardroom: 

Can Open Book be called ‘Open Book’ if its first day doesn’t resemble spring-esque weather despite it being early September? 

[Laughs] With Cape Town at this time of year you can’t speak about it without first having a conversation about weather. If it was last week we would have had wind and rain. If it’s next week it’s probably summer. Monday was 30°C and now we’re being blown down the street!

In a previous interview you’ve shared that “as an organiser, you always worry people won't come”. Have attendance rates or the selling of tickets dispelled this concern?

A lot of event organisers are finding that tickets are moving very, very slowly. And I think that that might even be one of the legacies that we're living with post Covid-19 - that people plan differently, they don't plan far in advance. They decide on the day, 'I feel like doing this'. They don't have the same way of committing. As an event organiser, it's hard to adjust to that. You want to see, 'Okay, we've got great ticket sales'. And instead, sales have been really, really slow. But, as in the past, we hope that most of our sales are going to be done during the festival itself.

Is it still too early to discern with this being day one of the festival?

Exactly. So many of our sales happen during the festival, which is great. It means that someone arrives, they're having such a good time they don't want to leave. They decide to stay for another two or three events.

Or bunk work on a Friday.

Exactly!

You, Dela and Mervyn curated a vast programme, with sessions ranging from conversations surrounding contemporary issues, such as the conflict in Palestine, to perennial favourite Writersports where writers-meet-improv-meets-laughter.

How do create a programme which caters for many?

Partly we are led by the book: the books bring us subjects and there are certain subjects that are also resonating with us and resonating with South Africa and globally.

There's always going to be stuff around mental health, for instance, or around feminism or masculinity. And it's not only because the books go there, but because it's so crucial for us to have those kinds of conversations.

We have tried to also include stuff that is a little bit lighter, that allows people a moment of respite, and that is because the world is a hard place a lot of the time. There are people who have had very, very difficult years personally and we just want to create spaces where, no matter what kind of event you're looking for, you go.

It's quite deliberate, that kind of curating. To try and find ways that people feel that they're welcome here and that they can attend something that's going to give them the feel and the sense of community that they're looking for. But, you know, even with the more difficult conversations, in a lot of those, there's a surprising amount of laughter. Which is always incredible to see. To actually get a sense of the resilience of the human spirit and how we manage to survive things ... more than survive ... That we somehow get even stronger, which I don't necessarily think is always a good thing. We shouldn't have to be so strong... 

How deliberate are you about featuring writers from across the continent on the programme? 

When we first started out, it was a truly international festival and people joined us from all over the world. Post-Covid, post-lockdown we could start gathering again and realised - and knew already -  how badly the book sector had suffered.

We really felt any funds we had, had to go towards supporting local writers. And so the first year, we only looked at local writers to try and gather them and support them through participation themes, but also hopefully through sales in any way that we could. And then, like a couple of years in, we thought, 'Okay, well, let us open our doors to writers who are based on the African continent'.

And that is partly because it allows the conversations to be broader, and to have points of view that would not necessarily come up if it was just South African-based writers. It's amazing to be able to include people from the continent but part of it is also to do with the xenophobia that we continue to be plagued by in South Africa... that we have to have writers from the continent here -- and celebrating that kind of creativity and the similarities of the stories that they're writing, the things to celebrate, the resonance.

Generational demographics of festival-attendees interest me with tropes surrounding my peerage i.e. millennials (allegedly...) not being readers, specifically. Are the 20/30-somethings drawn to panel discussions on books, or events the likes of live music or slam poetry? 

It's not just 'Okay, millennials don't read. You hear 'South Africans don't read'. 'This group doesn't read'. 'That group doesn't read'.

If I look at the people who are in the foyer after each event, it's this beautiful mix of people that I feel like 'Ah, this is what Cape Town looks like to me'. At the moment we've got a story time event going on that's got eight-year-olds and they're super noisy and fantastic and I love them!

And right the way through to people who are in their late 70s, early 80s. We've got a broad mix and I think the common denominator is a love of meaningful conversation.

It might not be that everyone in the room is an enormous reader. They might have bought their first book today. They might not be buying books ever. They might be going to the library. The thing is that we've consciously steered away from this being a book festival. Yes, it is a book festival, but more important to us is that it's a festival of conversation and a space for gathering.

And I think that a lot of people are in a world where you're feeling disconnected. You're feeling a little bit lonely and to find places where there's a sense of community can be everything that you need.

If you could describe the task, or enterprise, of organising this festival in three words, what they would be?

You're so mean! Only three!

Okay, you can have five. 

Privilege. Creative. Flexible. Welcoming. Meaningful.

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