Glass Jars Among Trees is a collection of current South African writing – an alternative anthology of South African writing that is fresh, compelling and different.  The editors, Arja Salafranca and Alan Finlay, have selected works from published and unpublished writers that reflect a wide variety of writing styles and formats.  Stories in the form of mock movie reviews and film scripts, diary entries, song lyrics, poetry, short fiction, essays, comedy – even opera – make this a comprehensive showcase of South Africa’s new generation of writers.

Kay Benno’s highly inventive Men with Dead Mothers tells its rather unusual story through film reviews, while Finuala Dowling’s Stand-Up Comic delivers a wry, slightly sad story of a woman’s experiences through the speech of a comedian. Lioness, Alan Kolski Horwitz’s slowly unfolding story reveals the trials of a second marriage, and the convoluted triangles couples negotiate as families merge and stepfamilies are formed.

On the non-fiction front, Gary Cummiskey’s essay, Who was Sinclair Beiles? probes the life and art of Beiles, South Africa’s sole Beat poet.

The diary entries are numerous and engaging, proving quite concisely that diary writing isn’t a lost art that only the Victorians practised in their flourishing penmanship.  Ursula Cox and Carol Leff explore what it means to be women at the close of the 20th century, while Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob lives through the war in Bosnia in 1993 in Once a Thing is Known – War Diary of a South African Peacekeeper in Bosnia, bringing to life just what it feels like to be caught up in a war.  Kobus Moolman, on the other hand, is writing in a time of peace, a time of artistic solitude in Boom St Journal and Karoo Notebook, bringing to his notebook a series of vignettes, snapshots and thoughts on writing.

Arja Salafranca was born in Spain to a Spanish father and a South African mother.  She has lived in South Africa since the age of five. In 1993 she earned a degree in African Literature and Psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her fiction and poetry has been published in a number of local and international journals and anthologies.  A Life Stripped of Illusions, her first poetry collection, won the 1994 Sanlam Award for poetry, while her short story, Couple on the Beach won the same award in 1999 for short fiction. Her second collection of poetry, The Fire in Which We Burn, was published in 2000. Arja has worked as a journalist and sub-editor for various newspapers.

Alan Finlay was born in Johannesburg and earned his BA in Philosophy and English at Rhodes University.  From 1994 to 1999 he published the literary magazine Bleksem,
and later founded the online literary magazine Donga. His own published collections of poetry include:  Burning Aloes (Dye Hard Press, 1994); No Free Sleeping (with Donald Parenzee and Vonani Bila)(Botsotso Publishers, 1998); and The Red Laughter Of Guns In Green Summer Rain (chainpoems with Phillip Zhuwao) (Dye Hard Press, 2002).  Alan works in social and media research and lives in Johannesburg with his wife and two sons.

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