Don’t miss South Africa’s most powerful storyteller, Rob Caskie, at this year’s Knysna Literary Festival. Caskie’s presentation, “Race to the Pole” on Sunday, 20 March, promises to provide wonderful entertainment as he describes the fantastic duel between Robert Scott of the Royal Navy and supreme polar explorer, Roald Amundsen from Norway, which ended starkly with the death of Scott’s entire party.

Known as a speaker who “fires the imagination and stirs the soul”, Caskie’s amazing ability to make a historic event come alive is a true gift. Since 2004, he has presented extensively in the United Kingdom and South Africa and his achievements were recognised with an invitation to speak at the Royal Geographic Society in London to full houses.
Caskie thrives on the challenge and reward of entertaining audiences in the “theatres of their imagination and transporting them via the power of a story well told”, and prides himself in unique storytelling without electronic or visual aids.

Another not to be missed event on the Knysna Literary Festival programme this year is the interactive Poetry Workshop with award-winning South African poet and novelist Finuala Dowling on Friday, 18 March.

Dowling is the seventh of eight children born to radio broadcasters Eve van der Byl and Paddy Dowling. She has a MA in English from the University of Cape Town and lectured in English at the University of South Africa for eight years. Her first poetry anthology, I Flying, was published in 2002 and won the Ingrid Jonker Prize. She has also won the Sanlam Award for Poetry and the Olive Schreiner Prize. She won the 2012 M-Net Literary Award (English category) for Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart.

Tickets for the Knysna Literary Festival events can be purchased online through Webtickets.co.za or from the Pam Golding Property office at 5 Gray Street, Knysna. Five events are already sold out – Fate of the Nation, Look ‘n Cook with Pete Goffe-Wood, Criminalising Investigative Journalism, Delicious Word Journey and Qhawe Children’s Theatre.

For more information about the Knysna Literary Festival call 044 382 5574, email info@knysnaliteraryfestival.co.za or visit www.knysnaliteraryfestival.co.za. Follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.